


Dante and Aristotle Discover the Mysteries of Themselves

by smudged_ink_writing



Category: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe - Benjamin Alire Sáenz
Genre: Alternative Perspective, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arguing, Best Friends, Birds, Boys Are Weird, Car Accident, Chicago (City), Drawing, Embarrassment, Friends to Lovers, Gay, Gay Panic, Growing Up, Hospitalization, I'm Sorry, Injury Recovery, Internalized Homophobia, Introspection, Letters, Love Confessions, Love at First Sight, M/M, Moving, Museums, POV Dante Quintana, Pining, Psychology, Questioning, Rain, Sad, Serious Injuries, Shoes are disgusting, Stargazing, Swimming, Swimming is gay I don't make the rules, The Quintanas, The Ultimate Slow Burn (you know how it is), The signs of being gay are showing up! a lot!, Therapy, am i going to keep adding them? yes, are these tags relevant anymore? no, dante quintana is The Gayest, good parenting, homophobic violence, in case you weren't aware, soft for a hot second
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:14:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 102
Words: 72,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24670645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smudged_ink_writing/pseuds/smudged_ink_writing
Summary: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, from Dante's perspective. The novel, rewritten.***I'm not dead, I'm just really busy. I'm still here, it just might take me a hot minute to finish this.***
Relationships: Aristotle Mendoza & Dante Quintana, Dante Quintana & Jaime Mendoza, Dante Quintana & Lilly Mendoza, Dante Quintana & Sam Quintana, Dante Quintana & Soledad Quintana
Comments: 85
Kudos: 179





	1. Introduction

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to apologize in advance for the summaries of each chapter. I'm incapable of writing good ones, so I put some random words from the chapter in the summary box instead. It's mostly just weird, but summaries are really awkward so I'm going with it.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An introduction to the work.

Please read these beginning notes as they’ll be VERY IMPORTANT to keep in mind as you read.

1\. I don’t share Ari and Dante’s culture, and therefore I’m not the ideal person to write this. I don’t speak Spanish either. This work won’t have Spanish in it that isn’t from AADDTSOTU, and I won’t be delving too far into Dante’s insecurities about being Mexican. I am in no way trying to erase the fact that these boys and their families are Mexican-American and I’m in no way attempting to whitewash; I legitimately don’t have the place or perspective to accurately represent it and can’t attempt to do so. I also 100% acknowledge that I’m not the best person to be giving you Dante’s point of view, but I’m still choosing to do so. If this bothers you, I completely understand.

2\. I will be taking many pieces of dialogue directly from the novel because I am adhering to cannon as much as possible as I just flip the perspective. Any direct quotes will be in **bold**. All of this as well as the characters and plot points belong to the lovely Benjamin Alire Sáenz.

3\. This looks super long, and I’m aware that I am insane and only questionably human. However, if you’re here and you’ve read the book it’s pretty safe to say you remember some of the chapters being extremely short. 105 is the cumulative total, and it’ll be around there and could change because of the time Dante spends away from Ari that I’ll be planning as I go. Don’t freak out; I know it looks like a lot, but the length of the chapters has far more to do with the word count than the number of the chapters does. I believe AADDTSOTU is around 66,000 words, and this should be of similar length.

Happy reading!

-Rain <3


	2. Introduction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sunshine, vinyl, and routines. Cheesy sayings and birdsong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi there! Welcome to the first chapter.  
> Here's a recap of what's happening in this chapter in AADDTSOTU - Ari wakes up and turns on the radio. He spends some quality time insulting the DJ in his head. Ritchie Valens comes on, and the music is over before it even begins. Sad.

Summer mornings were gloriously the same.

Thin rays of sunlight poked through the slit between the curtains. The blankets meant to cover my whole bed were tightly bunched at the bottom of the bed to ward off the heat. The sheets were pulled up to the middle of my chest. I was surrounded by the perpetually-growing clutter of my bedroom.

And at the same time, summer mornings were delightfully different.

Each time the sun climbed its way up the horizon and into the clear blue Texas sky, it reminded me that even in the monotony that came with three months of an empty summer, there were new chances. As cheesy as that sounded, it was true.

As always, I rolled out of the bed and tugged my limbs upward until I was standing. I put on a record. It didn’t matter what it was or why I put it on; I just enjoyed it.

Sometimes I wish the rest of the world could be as simple as an old record on a summer morning.

Humming along to the chorus, I pulled on a swimsuit and a tee shirt. Kicked around the mess of the floor. Tugged a brush through my hair. Pulled the crumpled bedding back into place so I could crumple it again that night.

I leaned against the windowsill. The sunlight warmed my skin. Just outside, I heard the crystalline melody of birds singing as they glided from tree to tree. Their feathers rumpled in the gentle breeze.

What did it feel like to be that free?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter keeps retitling itself for some reason?? Whenever I come back it's called "Introduction," which isn't true?? Anyways, in case it happens again, this is supposed to be called "The Different Rules of Summer - Chapter One."
> 
> Thanks for reading!  
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com) or email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	3. The Different Rules of Summer - Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arguments, good cooking, and George Orwell. Today's the day and life is weird.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello beautiful people! We return for another! 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari goes downstairs to talk to his mother. Her Catholic friends are overwhelming, and he's volunteered at the food bank. The problem with his life is that it's someone else's idea. Ari decides to go swimming. He also has strange humor and doesn't understand his father.

I closed the window and floated down the stairs into the kitchen where my dad was reading and my mom was cooking something, the smell from the pan wafting through the house.

“Ah, good morning, Dante!” my dad said, looking up from his book.  
“Morning, dad,” I responded, leaning over to kiss him on the cheek, then striding over to do the same to my mom. “G’morning.”  
She smiled at me before going back to fussing with the food she’d been making.

I slid onto a chair and bent over the table to see what my dad was reading. “George Orwell again? There are other authors, you know.”  
“I know. 1984 just happens to be one of the best books ever written.”  
“Debatable.”  
“Please don’t,” my mother deadpanned from the stovetop.  
We laughed.

That was one of my favorite things: arguing. Not like the way some people argue, with the yelling and anger, but just having a friendly conversation about a topic. And explaining why I was right. The fact was, I knew I was right every time because I formed my opinions carefully, based on a perfectly-curated mixture of fact and emotional appeal. My entire thought process was pretty much like the high school teachers explain debating, with ethos, pathos, and logos and whatever else ancient people called it. To me, it was just talking.

The problem with liking to argue (well, there are lots of problems, but we’ll start with this one) is that you have to have someone to argue with. I didn’t. My mom wouldn’t put up with it for long, my dad and I agreed on too much and didn’t like to talk about what we disagreed on, I didn’t have any siblings, and none of my friends… Well, I didn’t really have any friends. Maybe I did; I went to Cathedral, which was the all-boys private high school in El Paso, and I guess I talked to lots of the guys there.

Whenever my mom talked about being a teenager, she would talk about her best friends. The names would always escape me, but the idea that she had two girls who did everything with her and knew her better than she knew herself made me wonder if that’s what everyone else had. If I was the only sixteen-year-old boy in the world to ever not have a best friend.

Talking to boys was a little weird to me, for some reason. That wasn’t helpful when you went to an all-boys school, but it was true all the same. I was different. I didn’t know how, and I didn’t know why. But I was. Girls were nice, but I didn’t think a boy and a girl would ever be allowed to be friends like boys could be with other boys.  
That didn’t seem fair. Not that I _couldn't_ talk to boys, but... 

At the time, the only person I had to argue with was myself. I did so wholeheartedly. It feels strange to disagree with yourself, but at the same time have the exact same ideas as you. Being alive was a strange phenomenon when your own head didn’t know where it was at half the time.

“It’s nice again today, Dante. You should go swimming,” my mom suggested.  
“Sure,” I mumbled with a shrug. I’d already been planning on it. I was wearing my swimsuit.  
“Today’s the day,” she said.  
That was our thing. We said it everyday. Today was the day for something new. Today, our lives would change for the better. Today was out there waiting with something special, just for us. I wanted to believe it.  
“Yeah, maybe.”  
“Come on, go out and get some sun! You’re sixteen. There’s a whole world out there. Go swimming. Meet a girl, maybe,” my dad smirked and nudged me.  
“Yeah, yeah, I’m going.”

I was out of the house in a hurry.

Swimming was another one of my favorite things. With swimming, you didn’t have to have someone to do it with. You didn’t have to mess with your own head. You could just do it. Be free, like the birds.

I liked that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	4. The Different Rules of Summer - Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heat, Texas, locker rooms. Boys continue to be weird and The Finger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me again! Wow, two chapters in one day. I tried writing in Comic Sans like everybody says you should do and it actually works. I'm horrified. I'm livid. I'm astounded. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter summary: Ari walks to the pool and the group of boys is rude to him. He "gives them the bird" and keeps walking, then starts to feel sorry for himself, which he describes as an art form. Ari goes on to think about his sisters, his brother, and the war living inside his father.

The pool wasn’t far from my house, so I walked instead of taking the bus, sun beating down on my head, darting between the shade provided by the occasional tree. It was hot. It was always hot. We’d moved to El Paso from Berkeley, California a few months ago for the last part of the school year. It was hot there, too, but Texas hot is different from California hot. It was a dry heat, an oppressive heat. A heat that you couldn’t forget was there. A heat that greedily took every bit of your attention.

As I went around the last corner, I could see the tall fence around the pool and the locker rooms. There was a pool at Cathedral, for the swim team, but it wasn’t open during the summer months. It was the fifteenth of June. The public pool was alright. The lifeguards were stupid, so I avoided them. It was constantly filled with splashing, squealing children and gossiping old ladies if it was after the weekly aerobics class. I didn’t mind. Swimming was fun no matter what.

Also as I came around the corner, a group of boys was coming toward me on their bikes. I moved to the left of the sidewalk so they could pass me. Instead, they stopped.

I’d seen them a few times before. Just a few boys from middle school constantly riding around the neighborhood. I was going to be a junior that year: 1987. I wasn’t necessarily afraid of them, per se. I just would’ve rather avoided them completely, that was all. It wasn’t the easiest to talk to boys, but I could still do it. It was a bit more difficult to talk to boys I had nothing in common with.

They were about to force me to try, though.

“Hey. Haven’t seen you around before,” the one in the front said, jerking his chin at me.

“Yeah, I moved here recently,” I said lightly. Cheerfully. They didn’t scare me. They wouldn’t scare me.

“Huh. What’s your name?”

“Dante Quintana.”

“Okay, Quintana. Where you goin’?”

“Just to the pool,” I made a vague gesture, then attempted to step around them. The boy pulled his bike sideways and didn’t let me leave.

I waited for them to say something. When they didn’t, I nodded and walked around the pack of them. They didn’t stop me this time.

People are strange. What was that? Why did they stop me? Why were they there in the first place?

When I reached the gates of the pool, I saw the group of them a little farther down the road, clumped in front of another boy. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, of course. All I saw was the boy giving them the finger.

I smiled as I opened the door to the locker room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	5. The Different Rules of Summer - Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pool water, whispering, half smiles, and laughter. A beautiful boy, everything and nothing at the same time. Painting new narratives to save them from the real world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends! The happiest of Dante Met Ari Days to you. June 15th, 2020 - 33 years ago today, they met.
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari thinks boys are weird. The lifeguards are jerks. Dante teaches Ari to swim. They are from then on inseperable. They ride the bus together. Flashback to his dad making him try Boy Scouts, and him hating it. Wishing his dad was better at communicating. Ari realizes that Dante's his first friend.

Since I was already wearing a swimsuit, I just ran through the shower before ducking out into the pool area.

I squinted into the glare of the sun against the chlorine-filled water. There were two pools; one was the colder water and was deeper, for swimming laps, while the other was warmer and more shallow for the kids and any classes taught by the terrible lifeguards.

I milled around for a bit in the lap pool, lazily making my way back and forth down a lane separated from others by chipped blue painted lines. Finally, as I got bored, I pulled myself out and sat on the edge, dangling my feet through the clear liquid and sloshing water back and forth.

That’s when I saw him.

A boy, probably about my age, in the small warm pool across the fenced-in area. Clearly awkward, clearly out of place, aimlessly floating. Looking just about as alone as I felt.

When I wandered a bit closer, I could see him better. He had his eyes closed, so I looked without worrying. He seemed like he was peaceful, but still not quite comfortable. His black hair, just on the border between short and long, fanned out in the water around him. His limbs were that strange length and skinniness that marked a boy not quite grown into his body yet, but getting there. He was beautiful. I wondered why I thought that.

Then I stopped wondering. I thought that he was beautiful because it was true.

Before I could stop myself, I cleared my throat. **“I can teach you how to swim.”**

The boy’s eyes fluttered open and he tilted himself up to standing. He walked over to the edge of the pool where I was standing. He didn’t say anything. Just looked at me, his nose a little scrunched like he was trying to figure me out.

**“I can teach you how to swim, if you want,”** I repeated. I wouldn’t let myself regret speaking. I had every right to speak, I reminded myself.

**“You talk funny,”** he said. It was true, I did. He didn’t. I could write sonnets about his voice after only three words. Oh lord. Something funny happened in my stomach.

**“Allergies.”**

**“What are you allergic to?”**

**“The air,”** I said, sort of truthfully. Really, I was allergic to being sixteen.

The boy laughed. My stomach did that thing again.

**“My name’s Dante.”**

He laughed again, then apologized. I didn’t mind. I could listen to him laugh all day, even if it was at my expense. “It’s okay. People laugh at my name.”

**“No, no,”** he rushed. **“See, it’s just that my name’s Aristotle.”**

My eyes and mouth flew open. It was like the universe had planned it. Aristotle noticed my fish-like expression and kind of chuckled.

**“Aristotle,”** he said again. We exploded with laughter.

I explained that my dad was an English professor. He explained that his dad was just a normal guy. He was named after his grandfather, and that he went by his middle name. His first name was Angel. He said both of his names in Spanish. His name was Angel Aristotle. We laughed.

I ended up babbling some story about my name. I never could remember much about that day. Nothing but the feeling. Lighting up every time he smiled. Being set on fire as we laughed together. Laughing and laughing and laughing, at nothing and everything and all that was between. I figured that was where we existed, between nothingness and everythingness, and we were both and neither and we were _us_ and I’d never felt anything like how I felt in those moments in that pool with this boy I’d met just minutes before.

**“Everyone calls me Ari,”** he told me at some point.

**“Nice to meet you, Ari,”** I said back. He looked down at the water and smiled, a little tug at one side of his mouth that I knew was real.

He let me teach him how to swim.

I learned that Ari was like me in that he thought a lot. Constantly, just thinking and thinking. The difference was that I liked to say the things I was thinking. Ari didn’t.

Ari was serious and determined. At the same time, though, he was funny and casual. I’d never met a person who could be so different and so similar to himself. A walking, swimming paradox. He would have his eyebrows furrowed in thought and nod along while I explained things, and then he would say something about one of the lifeguards and we’d melt right into the pool water with laughter.

We laughed a lot.

I was smart. I knew that and I wasn’t afraid to say it. It wasn’t bragging; it was just a thing that was always there. Fact. Ari was smart, too, but it was a different kind of smart. I could talk for hours about literature and think aloud about the questions philosophers had been asking for thousands of years. Ari could talk about how life really was, and how we knew what we did. I was head-in-the-clouds, ideas on paper smart, and Ari was feet-on-the-ground, reality smart. We were good together.

Oh, we were _so_ good together.

After that day, we spent more time with each other. Swimming, sitting in the park and looking at the sky, reading books and comics, arguing. I finally had someone to argue with.

Our tastes in comics were different. So were our tastes in books. Ari had this outlook on life that made him the kind of smart he was. The way he walked through his days and how he saw the different books made him that kind of grounded brilliant, the Ari way. I loved _Heart of Darkness_ by Conrad because the writing was beautiful and it was interesting to see the world in a different way. Ari lied and told me he hated it, but he liked it because he agreed that life was a dark place to be. Our place between everything and nothing wasn’t as sweet for Ari as it was for me.

We talked about our parents. We both had those parents who told us to go and see the world. To get outside. It was fine with us.

**“Do you think our parents are right- that there’s a whole world out there waiting just for us?”** I mused one afternoon.

**“I doubt it.”** I laughed. Of course he doubted it.

Then he furrowed his eyebrows. After a moment, the corner of his lips quirked upward. **“Let’s ride the bus and see what’s out there.”**

So we did.

**“Rich people don’t ride the bus,”** Ari said the first time we were riding.

**“That’s why we like it.”**

**“Are we poor?”**

**“No. If we ran away from home, we’d both be poor,”** I said. I did that sometimes, just let my most outlandish thoughts fly away into the air around us. When I said something like that, Ari would smile. I loved it when he smiled.

He asked me if I’d ever run away.

**“I’m crazy about my mom and dad,”** I explained when I told him I wouldn’t.

His face broke into another grin. He shook his head a little, like he couldn’t understand how someone could say something like that.

When we rode the bus, we would make up things about the other passengers. I would lean all the way over and whisper in Ari’s ear, my nose brushing the side of his head, and tell him what I thought they were doing. He would do the same to me sometimes. We would giggle and nod along to each others’ stories.

Two boys on the bus, painting pictures of someone else’s narrative in the brightest colors we had. We didn’t have much pigment, but we mixed ours together and streaked it in brilliant hues to set the people free from reality.

I was starting to think that maybe reality wasn’t such a trap after all.

I was starting to think that the world around me was better than the ones I kept in my head.

I was starting to think that Ari was the most beautiful person I’d ever met.

I didn’t wonder why anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made myself wait and write this on the anniversary! An iconic chapter. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	6. The Different Rules of Summer - Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poems, frowning, orderly bedrooms, and afternoon sun. Talking to adults is awkward and calling your dad a wiseass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! I ended up cutting quite a bit of the original dialogue because there was A LOT of it in this chapter. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari goes to Dante's house and is uncomfortable with Sam because he thought about his own relationship with his father. Dante cleans his room while Ari reads. Ari calls Dante perfect in his clean room. He learns the words "inscrutable" and "friend."

After Ari’s swimming lesson one day, I invited him to my house.

It wasn’t exactly that I was embarrassed; my parents were my favorite people besides Ari, so introducing them wouldn’t be embarrassing. But I was definitely nervous. Mostly, I think it was that I lived in a pretty big house, and it made me feel weird, especially since I hadn’t been to Ari’s house to compare them. It didn’t matter to me how big his house was, obviously, but I wasn’t able to show him that when it was just him in mine. I couldn’t make sure he knew that I didn’t mind before he saw where I lived.

I didn’t really know what my brain meant by all that, so I just brought him home one day. My dad was going to love Ari. I cared a lot about that, for some reason. _No,_ I told myself, _I care because it’s my only real friend, so of course I want my dad to like him._

When we walked in the door, I led Ari straight to my dad’s office.

I walked over and kissed him on the cheek, making him look up from his book.

**“You didn’t shave this morning, Dad,”** I said.

**“It’s summer,”** he grinned.

**“That means you don’t have to work,”** I mused.

**“That means I have to finish writing my book.”**

**“Writing a book isn’t work.”**

He laughed the way that Ari and I laughed together, long and loud and shaking his shoulders. **“You have a lot to learn about work,”** he told me when he caught his breath.

**“It’s summer, Dad. I don’t want to hear about work.”**

**“You never want to hear about work.”**

I cleared my throat a little and chose a new topic. **“Are you going to grow a beard?”**

**“No. It’s too hot. And besides, your mother won’t kiss me if I go more than a day without shaving.”**

**“Wow, she’s strict.”**

**“Yup.”**

**“And what would you do without her kisses?”** I smirked. Ari shifted beside me. I looked over at him. His eyebrows were a little furrowed and his face was scrunched in a way I’d never seen before.

I glanced back at my dad and told him what was happening using only my eyes. We were good at that when we needed to be. He told me not to worry.

**“How do you put up with this guy? You must be Ari.”**

**“Yes, sir.”**

**“I’m Sam. Sam Quintana,”** my dad got up and shook his hand.

**“Nice to meet you, Mr. Quintana.”**

**“You can call me Sam.”**

**“I can’t,”** Ari said, frowning a little.

**“That’s sweet. And respectful,”** my dad smiled and nodded at Ari, then turned to me. **“Maybe you can learn something from him, Dante.”**

**“You mean you want me to call you Mr. Quintana?”**

The rest of the conversation was mostly me trying to save Ari, who looked rather like he wished the floor would swallow him up, for some reason or another. He was like a lost child, not sure where he was going or what he was looking for other than to be somewhere other than in that room. I even called my dad a wiseass to get him to talk about something else.

Eventually, my dad let us out and we headed up to my room to clean.

I gave Ari a book of poetry and told him to read while I cleaned.

**“Maybe I should just, you know, leave you… it’s a little scary in here,”** he said seriously. I smiled.

**“Don’t. Don’t leave. I hate cleaning my room.”**

**“Maybe if you didn’t have so many things.”**

**“It’s just stuff. If you stay, it won’t be so bad,”** I said without planning to. I didn’t really plan what I said to Ari anymore. It just came out. Ari never seemed to mind.

I told Ari again to sit on my chair and read. He noticed my sketch pad this time.

**“What’s this?”**

**“A sketch pad.”**

**“Can I see?”**

**“I don’t like to show it to anyone.”** I paused and gestured to the book again. **“Really, it won’t kill you.”**

So I set to work, finally, as Ari frowned at the pages in front of him.

Cleaning wasn’t something I loved, obviously, but it was easy. Long and boring, but I’d done it so many times, I had a system worked out.

A few hours later, clothes folded, art supplies in old mugs, books standing upright, records in order, bed made, floor clean… I felt good. As much as this wasn’t my favorite thing, the feeling of the clean room was good. It felt like when my mom told me every morning that today was the day. Like, maybe it was.

Or maybe it wasn’t the room. Maybe it was that there was a boy there. My best friend who knew more about me than anyone else, and who was frowning down at my book like he was trying to intimidate it even though he didn’t really want to read it in the first place, and who was sitting and waiting for me to clean my room simply because he enjoyed my company and I’d asked him to.

I pulled the curtains all the way open. Honey-golden Texas sunlight flooded the room. Ari looked up at me and squinted, scrunching his nose. He smiled, his face wide open and his hand coming up to push his hair out of his face. I smiled back.

My stomach did that thing again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all for today! 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	7. The Different Rules of Summer - Chapter Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gifts, shared looks, and surprises. Unannounced guests and getting lost in thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Dante goes to Ari's house unannounced. He brings a gift, then convinces the Mendozas to accept it after they try to refuse. Ari is confused about Dante's ability to make his father smile, and is confused about his father in general (what else is new).

It was around four o’clock when I made the decision.

I told my mom I’d be going to Ari’s house. My dad gave me a book from our coffee table in a little gift bag and said not to let them refuse it. They both told me I couldn’t go to someone’s home without a gift, especially unannounced. I took the bag and walked to Ari’s house, reassuring myself that it was fine, this was my best friend. Also, I was good at talking to adults. Anybody who raised someone like Ari had to have been a good person, so I wasn’t worried about that, either.

It was hard not to be a little nervous, though.

When I got to the doorstep of the Mendozas’ home, I took a deep breath and ran a hand through my hair. I knocked.

Mrs. Mendoza answered. She let me into the house without saying anything.

**“I’m Dante Quintana.”**

**“He taught me how to swim,”** Ari added from the other side of the room. **“You said don’t drown- so I found someone to help me keep my promise.”**

The parents looked at each other, smiling with their eyes.

I shook hands with Mr. Mendoza and handed him the book.

I felt Ari staring at me. I had sort of forgotten that this was me, coming into his house, introducing myself to his family without telling him I’d be coming. I turned and smiled at him before looking back to his parents.

**“Dante, this is really very generous- but I don’t know if I can accept this,”** Mr. Mendoza said.

**“It’s about Mexican art,”** I said, racking my brain for a convincing argument, **“so you _have_ to take it. My parents didn’t want me to come over here empty-handed. So you have to take it.”**

Mrs. Mendoza’s eyes traced the cover of the book. **“It’s a beautiful book. Thank you, Dante.”**

**“You should thank my dad. It was his idea.”**

**“Thank your father for me, will you Dante?”** Mr. Mendoza smiled. He didn’t have any extra lines on his face when he smiled, not like his wife. This was a man who didn’t smile often. Then he sat down at the table with the book and opened it carefully.

I looked at Ari. He was staring at his dad with furrowed eyebrows.

I gently put my hand on his arm to bring him back. He blinked.

Why was it that the people we loved the most were the people we could never understand?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always find Ari's relationship with his father and his reaction to Dante and Sam's relationship really interesting. There's a lot in this book about masculinity and discovering what it means to "be a man", which is heavily influenced by their Mexican American heritage and culture. Another thing that is known to contribute to a boy's idea of manhood is their father figure, and in this case Ari views his ultimate role model for his adult life as distant, which adds to his worry about being the wrong kind of person when he grows as well as what he thinks a man should be. Ari and Jaime's relationship is much more difficult to portray from Dante's perspective, but I'll try to work in some aspects in future chapters with the parents. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	8. The Different Rules of Summer - Chapter Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hobbies, intellectualism, and doubting. Finding a lie within a truth, a truth within a lie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel kinda bad since this entire chapter was dialogue plus just a few lines of other narrative, so this is pretty much copied from the book. Not much I could do, unfortunately. It was an important one. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Dante and Ari go to Ari's room and talk. Ari finds out that Dante's ashamed, and admits to himself that he's ashamed, too, but he doesn't know why. "Dante. I really liked him. I really, really liked him."

**“There’s nothing in your room,”** I said as we entered.

**“There’s a bed, a clock radio, a rocking chair, a bookcase, some books. That’s not nothing."**

**“Nothing on the walls.”**

**“I took down my posters.”**

**“Why?”**

**“Didn’t like them.”**

**“You’re like a monk.”**

**“Yeah. Aristotle the monk.”**

**“Don’t you have hobbies?”**

**“Sure. staring at the blank walls.”**

**“Maybe you’ll be a priest.”**

**“You have to believe in God to be a priest.”**

**“You don’t believe in God? Not even a little?”** I asked. I believed in something, but I didn’t know just what it was.

**“Maybe a little. But not a lot,”** he shrugged.

**“So you’re an agnostic?”**

**“Sure. A Catholic agnostic.”**

I laughed, longer and harder than I’d laughed since I’d seen Ari the day before.

He squinted at me. **“I didn’t say it to be funny.”**

**“I know. But it _is_ funny.” **

**“Do you think it’s bad- to doubt?”**

**“No. I think it’s smart.”**

**“I don’t think I’m so smart. Not like you, Dante.”**

**“You are smart, Ari. Very smart,”** I said, shocked that he could think otherwise. **“And anyway, being smart isn’t everything. People just make fun of you. My dad says it’s all right if people make fun of you. You know what he said to me? He said, ‘Dante, you’re an intellectual. That’s who you are. Don’t be ashamed of that.’”**

He just looked at me. I smiled and pressed on, letting the truth escape me.

**“Ari, I’m trying not to be ashamed.”**

It was true.

But it wasn’t really about being smart, or at least not entirely. I knew what it was about, but it was easier to hide behind the way those words fit into this conversation.

People hid behind words all the time. It turned out you could even hide behind them when they were the truth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	9. The Different Rules of Summer - Chapter Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aspirations, growing up, and truces. Thinking too much and the pitfalls of being a man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello glorious people! 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari wonders about his father. That's it, that's all.

Ari always said that we were becoming men.

I didn’t really know what he meant by that. Or, maybe I did, but I didn’t know what it meant when Ari said it. He used the word “man” differently than anyone I’d ever met before. Ari said “man” like it was the only thing we ever needed to aspire to. Like we could forget about being kind, stable, wise, hardworking, as long as we could be men.

When I got home that night, I laid down on my bed, staring at the ceiling like Ari’d said he stared at the blank walls of his plain bedroom.

Manhood, to me, was something far-off in the distant future. I could worry about being a man when I needed to be one. But I thought about what it would be like, regardless of how much I didn’t need to.

The thing about being a man was that there were so many things that went into it that I just wasn’t good at. To be a man, you had to be strong, and confident, and not emotional, and in control, and all these other things I wasn’t even close to. I was just me. And who I was definitely wasn’t any of those things.

I supposed that, in order to be a man, and in order to have a good life, I would have to change. Maybe I would grow into it, like Ari was so convinced we would. Over time, I could start being sure of myself, and stop crying so much, and get a hold of my head. I would stop fighting with my own mind, halt the battle between two sides of a war gone on long enough for me to forget what even started it, harsh enough to make me need to close my eyes and shut everything out.

When you were a boy at war with yourself, being a man meant creating a truce.

I didn’t know how to do that.

I rolled over and reached for a book. This much thinking was painful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes I get to thinking about Dante's ideas of masculinity that come from his surroundings and how much this idea of "a real man" was so different from who he was and then I think about how he must have felt when he realized he was gay and then I think about how Ari's idea of manhood was shaped around his father and his brother and the toxicity of going too far with masculinity balanced by his only role model being distant and not showing emotion and I just... These poor boys trying to grow up in a world that didn't have a place for them... I can't... 
> 
> ANYWAYS, as always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	10. The Different Rules of Summer - Chapter Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Irritation, being at war, and PayDays. Ari says he doesn't like Coke, and three of four parents have nicknames.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did some research for this one (and by "some" I mean A LOT)! Boundless gratitude to the wonderful [yucatanmafia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yucatanmafia/pseuds/yucatanmafia) for the insight. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari and Dante go to the 7-Eleven. Ari doesn't like Cokes. Dante asks about Mexicans and nicknames, and the conversation goes from there. "Weird."

We continued our swimming through the summer.

Once, after we were finished, our bodies fragrant with chlorine and sunshine, floppy and drunk on exhaustion, we walked down to the 7-Eleven. Ari bought a PayDay, and I bought peanuts and a Coke. I found out that Ari didn’t like Cokes when I offered him a drink, which struck me as extremely odd and extremely untrue, for some reason. But then, who was I to say what he did and didn’t like?

That morning, I’d woken up already at war with myself. For the past few years, I’d been arguing with myself because I hadn’t had anyone to argue with. The habit had stuck, and become more subconscious. The war, fully raging within me, made it difficult to focus on anything else. Attention-sucking, energy-sapping. But that morning, the war within the depths of my brain had decided to pick one of my least favorite topics to battle over: being Mexican.

I didn’t exactly dislike it. I think I just didn’t feel like I really _was_ , for sure. It felt like I was stuck in the space between being a perfect Mexican and being a perfect American, and I couldn’t really be either as well as people expected me to be. Honestly, I couldn’t be either as well as _I_ expected myself to be. Maybe that was all there was to it. Maybe more lurked in the shadows.

Could I ask Ari about it? Would he understand? I mean, we were both Mexican American. If I wanted to bring it up, I would just have to choose a safe topic…

**“Why do Mexicans like nicknames?”** I asked suddenly.

He tilted his head to the side and furrowed his eyebrows. **“I don’t know. Do we?”**

**“Yes. You know what my aunts call my mom? They call her Chole.”**

**“Is her name Soledad?”**

**“See what I mean, Ari?”** I threw up my hands and started to talk faster and a little louder, like I always did when an argument really got me going. **“You know. You know the nickname for Soledad. It’s like in the air. What’s that about? Why can’t they just call her Soledad? What’s this Chole business? Where do they get Chole from?”**

**“Why does it bother you so much?”**

**“I don’t know,”** I said truthfully, **“It’s weird.”**

**“Is that the word of the day?”**

I laughed.

**“Does your mother have a nickname?”**

**“Lilly. Her name’s Lilliana.”**

**“That’s a nice name.”**

**“So is Soledad.”**

**“No, not really. How would you like to be named Solitude?”**

**“It can also mean lonely,”** he said, visibly realizing what a terrible point it was as soon as it left his mouth.

**“See? What a sad name.”**

**“I don’t think it’s sad. I think it’s a beautiful name. I think it fits your mom just right.”**

**“Maybe so. But Sam,”** I pointed at him for effect, **“Sam is perfect for my dad.”**

**“Yeah.”**

**“What’s your dad’s name?”**

**“Jaime.”**

**“I like that name.”**

**“His real name’s Santiago.”**

I bit back a fit of laughter and said, **“see what I mean about the nicknames?”**

A pause ensued. My rising dread filled the silence. This was already more difficult than I’d imagined, and it hadn’t even begun yet. I couldn't believe I'd wanted to talk about this. 

**“It bothers you,”** Ari started slowly, **“that you’re Mexican, doesn’t it?”**

 **“No.”** Another pause. **“Yes, it bothers me.”**

I took a bit of the PayDay he offered me. **“I don’t know,”** I thought aloud.

**“Yes. It bothers you,”** Ari told me gently.

**“You know what I think, Ari? I think Mexicans don’t like me.”**

I watched as the concern and confusion grew on his face and muddled into a mess of mouth twitching and forehead scrunching. **“That’s a weird thing to say.”**

 **“Weird,”** I repeated.

**“Weird.”**

Weird.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	11. The Different Rules of Summer - Chapter Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Interjections, intoxication, and Venus. Stars are fascinating, light pollution is a bitch, and the universe holds so many secrets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome! 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari and Dante go to the desert to look at the stars. Ari learns that Dante is going to discover all the secrets of the universe. They go to Dante's backyard to sleep outside, but there's too much light pollution.

I’d gotten a telescope for my birthday.

Sixteen. My sixteenth birthday, just a few days before I met Ari, had been the same as every birthday I’d had before. I’d been told sixteen was a good year; sixteen was young, sixteen was fun, sixteen was the year when life would start coming together right before your eyes. None of it was true outside of the movies. So far, sixteen _did_ feel different, but so far, I’d spent it with my new best friend.

When the sky was clear and the sun was starting to set a little bit earlier every night, Ari and I went out to the desert with my parents to use my telescope. I hadn’t tried it yet. This seemed like just the time.

The drive was long, to get far away from the light pollution of El Paso and towards the place where you could see the world just as it was intended without the artificial glow found in human-made places to steal the wonders of the world from the human eye. The radio played, and my dad and I sang along poorly. My mom shook her head at us and hid a smile behind her hand.

As soon as we arrived, I hopped out of the car and started assembling the telescope with my dad. Ari was left to listen to the radio and accept a Coke from my mom. Ari said he didn’t like Cokes (I still didn’t believe him on that one), and yet he took it without hesitation. He shifted his weight back and forth, and his eyebrows were drawn close together, shoulders hunched in an unconscious attempt to close out the conversation. I shuffled closer to them so I could hear and jump in to rescue him if needed.

**“Dante says you’re very smart.”**

**“I’m not as smart as Dante.”**

**“I thought we talked about this, Ari,”** I interjected.

**“What?”** my mom asked.

**“Nothing. It’s just that most smart people are perfect shits.”**

**“Dante!”** she scolded. I almost sighed in relief at my success. Attention diverted.

**“Yeah, Mom, I know, the language.”**

**“Why is it you like to cuss so much, Dante?”**

**“It’s fun.”**

**“It _is_ fun,”** my dad said, laughing, **“but that kind of fun needs to happen when your mother isn’t around.”**

I chuckled and started to look at the sky. After a few seconds, I found what I’d been looking for and interrupted their squabbling. The noise stopped. I felt Ari sit down beside me and look upwards.

My parents looked through first. I’d pointed the telescope right toward a dense grouping of stars I was pretty sure contained Venus (which was absolutely fascinating). Then Ari leaned over and put his eye to the lens. His whole face went still, wide open and undone, basking in the wonders of the night sky, intoxicated by the beauty. I started to explain what he was looking at, but I ended up just rambling quietly for a bit and watching him look instead. He wasn’t thinking about my words. I didn’t blame him.

**“Someday, I’m going to discover all the secrets of the universe,”** I whispered.

**“What are you going to do with all those secrets, Dante?”** he asked quietly, the side of his mouth flitting upward.

**“I’ll know what to do with them. Maybe change the world.”**

He seemed to believe me.

We piled into the car and drove back home.

The two of us slept outside. Sweet, warm air surrounded us, a blanket of honey left over from the light of the long day. A window had been left open, and my parents stood in the kitchen talking. My father talked in English, my mother in Spanish. We were just close enough to hear that much, but far away enough for the noise to be too fuzzy to discern individual words.

**“They do that,”** I breathed.

**“Mine too,”** Ari breathed back.

I had the sudden urge to touch him. Maybe the stars or the protection of the inky night sky influenced it, but the need to do it overcame me. Just to reach over and take his hand, maybe. To tell him, see, the world wasn’t as bad as he thought, and he was worth more than he thought of himself, and he would be the first to hear all the secrets of the universe once I discovered them because who else would I tell, and…

I bit my lip instead. **“Too much light pollution.”**

**“Too much light pollution.”**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting.gmail.com.


	12. The Different Rules of Summer - Chapter Eleven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Un)Athleticism, precision, and fundamental truths. A byproduct of our oppressive and exploitative capitalist society and Dante's not Japanese.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Am I the only person who didn't know that Ari and Dante skateboard? It really threw me for a hot second there because WHAT and how did I not know that??? It just casually mentioned it at the beginning of the chapter. Huh. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Dante has a war with shoes.

Every single person has their fundamental truths. These are their core values, things they believe more than anything else. Fundamental truths influence how people see the world around them and how they live their lives. For some people, the truths have to do with a god or a religion, or kindness and compassion, or maybe destiny and fate.

Well, I had a few fundamental truths. I believed people were born truly good inside (and you could find that good in anyone if you looked hard enough), hard work and precision were the best ways to succeed, and shoes were a disgusting idea created by disgusting people.

For as long as I could remember, shoes had been my great nemesis. We battled long and hard through my entire life. My parents always told me about how, as a toddler, I would yank off any shoes and socks someone dared to shove my tiny feet into and throw them as far as my young muscles could manage. As I grew older, I would remove my shoes at any possible time.

That summer, Ari was made fully aware of this hatred of mine. I knew that he knew; I’d take them off anywhere, including in church and at the movies, once after which we missed our bus because I’d forgotten them in the theater and we’d had to turn back. It could be a bit of a problem at times like those, but overall caused very little trouble. Ari knew, but he never said anything.

One day, probably mid-July, I went over to his house and took off my shoes on his porch before coming in.

**“The Japanese do that,”** I explained. **“They don’t bring the dirt of the world into another person’s house.”**

**“Yeah, but we’re not Japanese, we’re Mexican.”** _Here we go again._

**“We’re not really Mexicans. Do we live in Mexico?”**

**“But that’s where our grandparents are from.”**

**“Okay, okay. But do we actually know anything about Mexico?”**

**“We speak Spanish.”**

**“Not that good.”**

**“Speak for yourself, Dante. You’re such a _pocho_.” **

**“What’s a _pocho_?”** I asked. I’d been called it before.

**“A half-assed Mexican.”**

I sighed. No need to remind me. **“Okay, so maybe I’m a _pocho_. But the point I’m making here is that we can adjust to other cultures.” **

He just laughed. I stared at him until I started laughing, too. It was contagious.

A few days later, after I’d taken off my shoes at the park, Ari finally cracked.

**“So how come you have this thing with shoes?”** he burst out.

**“I don’t like them. That’s it. That’s all. There’s no big secret here. I was born not liking them. There’s nothing complicated about the whole thing. Well, except there’s this thing called my mom…”**

I went off on a whole tangent about my mom pleading with me about the shoes thing because she didn’t want me to look like “another poor Mexican.” It wasn’t about that. Shoes had nothing to do with being poor and nothing to do with being Mexican. I just didn’t like them at all.

**“You know, wearing shoes is an unnatural act. That’s my basic premise,”** I finished grandly, in reference to my fundamental truth. I could’ve told him all about how the pressure to wear shoes was a byproduct of our oppressive and exploitative capitalist society and herd mindset, and our ancestors got along just fine without them, but I’d already talked for a long time.

**“Your basic premise?”**

**“You know, the founding principle.”**

**“The founding principle?”**

**“You’re looking at me like you think I’m nuts.”**

**“You _are_ nuts, Dante.” **

**“I’m not,”** I defended, bristling immediately. He kept looking at me, so I said it again: **“I’m _not_.” **

**“Okay. You’re not. You’re not nuts and you’re not Japanese.”**

I started tugging at his laces until they hung free and untangled. **“Take off your shoes, Ari. Live a little."**

I invented a game. We stood at a line and threw our shoes, one at a time. We marked where each shoe landed with chalk and measured with my dad’s tape measure. Three rounds meant six throws each, so I planned my strategy of warming up my throwing arm accordingly. I wasn’t athletic, and Ari seemed to be, so I relied on my acute sense of spatial awareness.

It didn’t go so well. Plus, Ari was getting impatient with my systematic approach.

We got into an argument lasting about ten minutes, looping through discussion of simplicity, being precise, knowing what you’re doing, being lazy, throwing the javelin, what constitutes a “real sport,” what the fun part was, what happened if a car came through… until we finally agreed on something: playing in the street was more fun than playing in the park. Secretly, I thought Ari might’ve been right. But I had better reasons. He knew of my willingness to keep dishing them out, too, so he surrendered.

Ari won the longest toss at forty-seven feet, three and one-quarter inches.

Just as I declared him the winner, my dad poked his head out of the house. **“What are you guys doing?”**

**“We’re playing a game.”**

**“What did I tell you Dante? About playing in the street? There’s a park _right there_. And what- are you throwing your tennis shoes around?” **

**“We’re _not_ throwing our tennis shoes around, Dad. We’re playing a game. It’s the common man’s version of the javelin. And we’re seeing who can throw his shoe the farthest,” **I said matter-of-factly.

My dad had already started laughing. His eyes brimmed with tears, face burning red, and he started to wheeze. We started laughing at him laughing, and he doubled over and forced himself to breathe.

Once he pulled himself together enough to say something, he said, **“You’re the only kid in the entire universe who could come up with a game as an excuse to beat the holy crap out of his tennis shoes. Your mother’s going to love this.”**

**“We don’t have to tell her.”**

**“Yes, we do.”**

**“Why?”** I groaned.

**“The no-secrets rule.”**

**“We’re playing in the middle of the street. How can that be a secret?”** I protested. I hated the no-secrets rule.

**“It’s a secret if we don’t tell her. Take it to the park, Dante.”**

We walked across the street to the park and set up the game again. Ari also won that time.

It didn’t matter if I’d lost. I’d gotten to put my tennis shoes through even more hell than I did everyday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	13. The Different Rules of Summer - Chapter Twelve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Childhood memories, BB guns, and a grave. Being terrified and being sad at the very same time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello beautiful people! 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari and Dante talk on the porch for a bit. The bird is shot, and it goes from there.

On a steamy afternoon when we were done swimming for the day, Ari and I sat on the front porch, our legs dangling off the side. I was deep in thought about something (it didn’t matter what it was, since I was usually deep in thought about something), staring down at my feet as my mind twisted words around one another and my entire being was put into pondering. Lost in thought. That is, lost in thought until I felt Ari’s gaze on me for a bit longer than usual. 

I glanced up. The corner of his mouth tilted into his genuine sideways smile. 

“What’re you smiling at?” I asked, smiling myself now. 

**“I was just smiling. Can’t a guy smile?”**

**“You’re not telling me the truth.”**

**“Okay,”** he sighed a little, **“I was smiling because you were looking at your feet.”**

**“That’s a funny thing to smile about.”**

**“It’s weird. Who does that- look at their feet? Except you?”**

**“It’s not a bad thing to study your own body.”**

**“That’s a really weird thing to say.”**

**“Whatever,”** I said. 

**“Whatever.”**

I knew they didn’t really talk about those kinds of things like that in Ari’s family. They didn’t seem to do much talking about life or themselves; only about what happened right in front of them. The Mendozas discussed the obvious, the practical. Not my family. We were constantly arguing about some philosophy or another, and my childhood was filled to the brim with memories of big talks from my mom and dad about being myself. About knowing my own heart and body. But in Ari’s life, people didn’t do that. 

**“Do you like dogs, Ari?”**

**“I love dogs.”**

**“Me too. They don’t have to wear shoes.”**

He laughed. 

**“I’m going to ask my dad if he’ll get me a dog,”** I decided out loud. Reckless spontaneity was a downfall according to my parents, but in that moment I had decided, and when I decided something, I didn’t go back on it. Call it stubbornness, but it was really commitment. 

We ended up talking about the dog thing for a while, but the whole idea vacated my brain the moment I heard it from across the street. 

A gunshot. 

Our heads snapped up to the source. In the park across the street, there stood three boys who looked about 14. They stood over something on the ground. Two of them had little BB guns. Something clicked and I realized it was a bird. 

A bird like the ones I’d watched the morning of the day I met Ari. A bird like the ones who hopped around in the dessert on their little stick-legs. A bird like the ones who skipped on a breeze from tree to tree outside my window, singing a song nobody could sing the very same. A little bird. Dead, on the ground. My insides twisted. 

I was across the street before I’d even noticed I’d moved at all. 

**“Hey!”** I heard myself yell, **“Stop that! What the hell’s wrong with you? Give me that gun.”**

**“My ass if I’m gonna give you my BB gun,”** one of the kids spat back. 

**“It’s against the law.”**

**“Second amendment.”**

**“Yeah, second amendment,”** the other gun-holder seconded.

**“The second amendment doesn’t apply to BB guns you jerk. And anyway, guns aren’t allowed on city property,”** I responded, voice threatening to break. 

**“What are you planning on doing about it, you piece of shit?”**

**“I’m going to make you stop.”**

**“How?”**

**“By kicking you skinny little asses all the way to the Mexican border,”** Ari said from behind me. I almost jumped. His voice sounded deeper than it had moments before, lower and smoother and I would’ve been scared if it were directed at me. I prayed it would never be directed at me, the voice or the look in his eyes or the way his jaw clenched and fists curled. 

The boys looked Ari up and down. Ari looked them up and down, too. I didn’t know what I was doing, so I just stood there. 

One of them started to point his gun at Ari. 

**“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, you little piece of dog shit,”** Ari growled. He reached over and took the gun. The boy looked as surprised as I felt. **“You’re lucky I don’t shove this up your ass.”**

Ari threw the gun on the ground. The kids left without another word. 

Our eyes met. His still flashed a little. I kept myself from recoiling. 

**“I didn’t know you liked to fight,”** I said, sounding small. 

“ **I don’t. Not really.”**

**“Yeah. You like to fight.”**

**“Maybe I do. And I didn’t know you were a pacifist.”**

**“Maybe I’m not a pacifist. Maybe I just think you need a good reason to go around killing birds.”** I looked up at him again, searching for a sign of emotion or humor or any of the Ari-ness that had left the moment he decided he’d be willing to fight. “ **You’re good at tossing around bad words, too.”**

**“Yeah, well, Dante, let’s not tell your mom.”**

**“We won’t tell yours either,”** I said. I wasn’t good with “obscenities,” as my mother called them. I had a feeling I could learn from Ari. 

**“I have a theory about why moms are so strict.”**

**“It’s because they love us, Ari.”**

**“That’s part of it. The other part of it is that they want us to stay boys forever.”**

**“Yeah, I think that would make my mom happy- if I was a boy forever.”**

I looked at the bird on the ground. My nose started to sting like it did before I cried. 

**“I’ve never seen you that mad,”** he said. 

**“I’ve never seen you that mad, either,”** I said. 

It was different, but I didn’t say anything. We were different, and we knew it. 

**“It’s just a little sparrow.”**

I cried then. 

Ari stood there with me, unsure. Fine with me. I was just sad. Sad for the bird, who would never fly again, who would never sing again, who would never go back to its nest and eat something delicious and hide from the rain and leave white streaks on a crabby old man’s car. 

I think I was also sad because I saw a side of Ari that made me feel something other than happiness. He made me happy, always, until that day. I saw something in Ari that made me feel frightened. In _my_ Ari, my best friend. I didn’t want to see it again. 

We walked home. 

**“Were you scared?”** I asked. 

**“No.”**

**“I was.”**

**“So?”**

We lapsed into silence as I made a mental list of all the ways it mattered that I felt scared. 

**“Why do birds exist, anyway?”** he threw up his hands and sighed, trying to contribute something. 

**“You don’t know?”**

**“I guess I don’t."**

**“Birds exist to teach us things about the sky.”**

**“You believe that?”**

**“Yes.”**

I stopped crying a few minutes later and breathed. 

**“Will you help me bury the bird?”**

**“Sure.”**

We dug a little grave in my yard and put the bird in it. I cried again. Ari didn’t. 

I didn’t mind if Ari wasn’t an emotional guy. Me, I was emotional enough for the both of us. I didn’t even mind if he didn’t know what to do with all my feelings, because that wasn’t his job. It was okay, too, and it felt good, for once, to have someone let me cry. Just let me, not fix it or make me feel better. We were good together. 

I did mind, however, when he was that way, like that day. I’d be terrified of that Ari for a long, long time. I’d seen guys like that before. Ari was not one of those guys. He couldn’t be. Those guys didn’t like me, and they did things I couldn’t stand, and they weren’t like him. Not my best friend. No. 

As he walked away that day, with the promise of seeing me tomorrow on his lips and scrutiny of me on his face and in his furrowed eyebrows, I thought about the bird again. 

How could someone do that to something so small? Who looked at a little bird and thought it could be fun to kill? Who looked at _anything_ and thought it could be fun to hurt? 

I imagined what it would be like to be that kind of person. It made my head spin. 

I wiped at my tears and went inside. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	14. Sparrows Falling From the Sky - Chapter One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Questions, weird feelings, and more coke and peanuts. Impending rain and running into a wall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello lovely people! This is the beginning of when Ari is sick and the boys spend some time apart because of it, so I actually have to work on a PLOT and CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT and WRITE. Weird. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari gets sick and has to stay home. There are dreams, deliriousness, and some good old-fashioned confusion about his dad.

Waking up the morning after the sparrow was like running into a wall.

I’d told my parents about it and spent some more time crying. More time thinking about the kind of person I didn’t want to be and why the sparrow meant so much to me. More time thinking about what it felt like to be scared of my best friend.

I rolled out of bed and got ready, the same I did every single day all summer, pretending the wall I’d just walked into had nothing to do with the overwhelming emotion coursing through me.

Stumbling down the stairs and into the kitchen, my heavy head filled with the melody of my parents’ voices. This time, my dad talked in Spanish and my mom in English. The conversation consisted mostly of Spanish because my dad always talked more than my mom, and Spanish took more effort to sort out in my head. Too early for that. Nine in the morning was the devil’s hour.

Before I went to meet Ari at the pool, my dad stopped me at the door. “Today’s the day, Dante.” Our saying.

“Today’s the day, Dad.”

We smiled.

I walked to the pool, this time taking a different way than normal because I was walking alone, so I didn’t want to run into those kids I’d met the day I met Ari. I came to realize, that summer, that the day I met Ari had been a big one for me. But I didn’t want to see those boys without Ari walking next to me.

We usually met at the park in front of my house and walked together (he was always there first waiting for me because he got up at a quote-unquote “normal hour” that seemed to me more like torture than the morning). This morning, I’d waited a bit and started off on my own. We’d agreed that after waiting ten minutes, you could leave, so it wasn’t too unusual. The heat made it unfair for someone to stand outside for long without shade or pool water.

After showering in the locker room, I slid into the lap pool. The chilly water woke me up the rest of the way, and I wondered why people would ever drink coffee if they could just do this everyday.

Fifteen minutes passed. I wrung out the bottom of my swimming shorts and went into the locker room to see if Ari was just showering.

Thirty minutes. I asked the lifeguards if they’d seen him (I was desperate).

Forty-five minutes. I changed into the normal clothes from my swimming bag and walked to the 7-Eleven.

Something was wrong.

No, it wasn’t. Nothing was wrong.

I bought a coke and peanuts and sat outside on the curb. My shoes were quickly discarded into my bag. Little fluffy clouds dotted the expansive sky, telling me it would rain in a week or so.

The feeling of being left behind rose in my chest. There wasn’t a way to call someone if you weren’t at home or a payphone, so it made sense that something came up and Ari just wasn’t able to tell me about it. But I couldn’t shake the feeling of there being more than just a family thing.

Ari didn’t show it much, being an externally unemotional guy, but he really liked hanging out with me. I knew it, and he knew I liked hanging out with him, too. It seemed odd that he would just bail on me without warning, especially after the sparrow the day before. We lived close enough for him to walk over and let me know what happened.

I knew that wasn’t realistic, and it wasn’t what happened. Ari had a commitment that came up and it was really important and he couldn’t miss it. Or give me a call. Or walk over to see me. Or tell me at all. That was it. I pushed down a spike of intuition and told myself nothing was wrong.

A sigh escaped my lips. Honestly, it didn’t make sense for this to matter so much to me. With other friends I’d had in the past, although not like Ari, it had happened loads of times.

I knew Ari was different in more ways than one. I’d gotten used to it over the past few months, but it was really strange at first.

Sometimes, when Ari would smile, or laugh, or run a hand through his hair, or brush something off my shirt, my stomach would do this _thing._ I couldn’t really explain it, but it kind of felt like the butterflies I got before I had to give a speech in school, but kind of… warmer? Sweeter? I didn’t know. All I knew was that thinking about Ari was different from thinking about anyone I’d met before…

But this wasn’t about me and my weird thoughts. It was about the fact that Ari hadn’t shown up this morning, after promising me he would, and never having done it before.

I still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all for now! 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	15. Sparrows Falling From the Sky - Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mantras, home, and porch furniture. An echo of an echo and a pit stop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi there! I'm quite glad to be back today. Yesterday I didn't feel like writing but I did today, so I'm in a good mood. Anyways, happy reading!
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari's mom forces him to drink water and eat endless chicken soup. He wants to go back to his normal life. A vague conversation about nightmares followed by learning that Jaime has bad dreams, too.

When I didn’t feel like riding the bus around alone anymore and the sun brushed at the horizon, I trudged toward home.

Just before I reached the front door, something stopped me. I turned around again and walked towards Ari’s house.

On the way there, I kept repeating to myself nothing was wrong, like a mantra. Nothing could be wrong. Nothing. Nothing could be wrong because this was Ari and nothing bad could happen to him because he was too good for bad things and nothing bad was happening, nothing at all. The overreaction rose in me once again. I told it _nothing was wrong._

Ari’s street was the best part of the neighborhood, to me. The houses were all a story shorter than on my street, so you could see the sky better. There were more trees here, too, and it felt like the homes were actually homes to some people. Mine was home, yes, but I didn’t really belong there. I grew up in California, and I couldn’t imagine living in El Paso for the rest of my life, so it was more like a pit stop for me. This street always reminded me that the ones who were from El Paso were actually at home here.

I strolled up to the Mendozas’ home. I didn’t knock, or even go on the porch. I just stood there, taking in the siding and shackles making up the house. Faded, worn-out furniture inhabited the peeling white front porch. Three kids had been raised here, and it seemed like the perfect place for it. Two girls and a boy would know this place as home.

A yell cut through the still air.

My head whipped upward, all traces of daydreaming gone. At the side of the house on the second story, I saw an open window. Ari’s bedroom window.

The yelling continued. If I tried really hard, I could make out words, switching between English and Spanish. The sound emulated confusion and fear, twisting around itself and fading until all I knew was the echo resounding in my brain.

I turned around and ran all the way home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com. 
> 
> Have a fantastic day!


	16. Sparrows Falling From the Sky - Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wandering, tear-wiping, listlessness. Ari's drowning (and by extension, Dante's drowning) and Soledad's a romantic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have returned! You know, I just didn't feel like writing or editing yesterday (or today). My tarot cards bullied me into coming back, and it wasn't so bad after all. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari doesn't like TV. A conversation with his mother. Ari asks if Dante can come over.

It had been a few days since the first time Ari hadn’t shown up. 

Since then, I’d been back to the pool everyday and wandered around after he wasn’t there. 

He’d left me behind. 

No, he hadn’t. I’d been to his house and heard the shouting. I’d listened to the distant words of a person drowning in the sea they found when they finally discovered their own emotions. He wasn’t forgetting about me, really. He was drowning, if the other night was any indication. He was drowning just as I was teaching him how to swim. 

Ari couldn’t be forgetting me because something was happening that I didn’t know about. It felt strange, to want to know and not want to know at the same time. 

Last night, I ran all the way home and into the house, up through the halls and stairs and into my bedroom. I threw myself onto my bed. My parents came in and stared at me. 

I told them what happened and what I’d heard. They did the usual parent things: the comforting words, the tear-wiping, the promise that I hadn’t been forgotten, and so on and so forth. Maybe Ari’s parents didn’t do that. Maybe most parents didn’t do that. But mine did. 

So when I woke up a few days later, I didn’t expect him to be there. But I went anyway. I went to the library, then home to read in the backyard and attempt to avoid the pitying glances of my parents. 

All the while, I wondered about the scream. 

Was he hurt? He didn’t sound hurt. He sounded… lost. Lost and confused, like there was nowhere to go anymore. 

I closed my book and opened my drawing pad. My pencil hung loose between idle fingers as I looked around for something to sketch. A patch of tall grass, the back side of the house, and a grouping of fluffy clouds made their way onto the page before I huffed and tossed the pad aside, too. 

Just as I was about to get up and start pacing, my mom slid the door open and sat down next to me on the ground.

“Are you okay, Dante?”

“Yeah.” 

“You don’t seem okay,” she said, putting a hand on my knee. 

“I’m… I’m fine, I think.” 

She sighed and looked up at the sky above us. I watched the thoughts play across her features. 

“You know, Dante, I still think about when I met your father.” 

I looked up from the grass. “Really?”    


“Yes, all the time. When we introduced ourselves, he told me he liked my name, and that it suited me.” 

“Ari says it suits you, too.” 

“I agree with them. But when he said that, it gave it a whole new meaning. My name, to me, was just a name, but then Sam said it like it really mattered. It felt different when he said it.” 

“Different, how?” 

“Different… I can’t really explain. We were in love from the beginning, though. We had our ups and downs. In fact, once, he waited for me at a restaurant for two whole hours when I forgot about our date. The man is stubborn. He told me about it the next day, and I felt awful.” 

“Mom, I see where this is going and-” 

“Shh. Let me finish. I know you’re sitting here, not knowing what’s going on, and after whatever happened that night, I can understand that you don’t feel comfortable going over to the house again. That was scary. 

“You know, Dante, the reason I felt bad when your father waited for me at the restaurant was because I let him down. No matter the reason for Ari going missing right now, there’s no way he wants you to feel this way. You’re going crazy. I know you lo-” she stopped to correct herself, “I know you’re very close to him, so I understand why you’re feeling strange, but he doesn’t love you any less just because something came up.” 

I looked down at the ground again. 

“Oh, I didn’t mean to say love…” 

“No, it’s okay. I know what you mean.” 

She pulled me to her in a hug. “Everything’s okay, Dante. It’s all just fine.” 

I tried to believe her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!!
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	17. Sparrows Falling From the Sky - Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blushing, scheduled phone calls, and maybes. Longing for something that's right in front of you and don't be an asshole, Ari.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on a roll today! This one includes quite a bit of dialogue straight from the book, but I managed to add some actual STUFF along with it. Enjoy!
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Dante comes over to Ari's house.

The phone rang sometime mid-morning. 

Our phone didn’t ring often without warning; when my parents talked to one of their friends or coworkers, they usually had a pretty good idea of when it would happen, what with work schedules, and my extended family only called on Saturdays at seven in the evening for my mom’s side and Sundays at four for my dad’s side to check in. 

The phone ringing through the house when adults were at work could only have meant one thing. 

I jumped over the back of the couch I’d been sitting on and bolted to the phone in the kitchen. I made it by the second ring, a record time for me. 

**“You haven’t been to the pool,”** I said moodily as soon as I knew for sure it was Ari. 

**“I’ve been in bed. I caught the flu,”** he replied, and I felt the tension melt out of my body. **“Mostly I’ve been sleeping, having really bad dreams, and eating chicken soup.”**

**“Fever?”**

**“Yeah.”**

**“Achy bones?”**

**“Yeah.”**

**“Night sweats?”**

**“Yeah.”**

**“Bad stuff.”** I fought to keep the relief out of my voice. **“What were your dreams about?”**

**“I can’t talk about them.”**

I knew how that felt. 

I gathered a few things into my arms and yelled to my mom that I was going out. She yelled back that today was the day. I smiled.

As soon as I made it to the Mendozas’ driveway, Mrs. Mendoza opened the door. She’d been expecting me. We grinned at each other as I walked in. 

Once she’d shut the door, her face turned serious again. Her brow furrowed just like Ari’s did (I’d assumed that was from his dad, but I was wrong). 

“Is everything okay?” I asked. 

“Yes. Well… I take it you’ve heard he’s been sick? Bad dreams?” 

I nodded. 

“He was yelling. For you. Maybe at you. But he kept saying your name, and he would shout for a while. From what he told his dad, I think he was looking for you and he couldn’t find you.”

“I… okay.” 

“Okay?” 

“Okay.” 

“Okay. I just thought you might want to know. But maybe don’t tell him I told you?” 

“I won’t.” 

I decided not to tell anyone about hearing the yelling, ever. 

We made small talk for a minute before she told me to head up and see Ari. 

**“Hi,”** I pushed the door open and smiled. 

He was sitting up in bed, blankets pushed down as if he was too hot but didn’t have the energy to take them off the bed. His hair flopped messily and his clothes rumpled, but he only looked vaguely ill. Still Ari. 

**“You forgot your shoes.”**

**“I donated them to the poor.”**

**“Guess the jeans are next.”**

I glanced down at my legs. **“Yeah.”**

We laughed. G _od, I’d missed that laugh._

**“You look a little pale.”**

**“I still look more Mexican than you do.”**

**“Everybody looks more Mexican than I do,”** I shot back, something inside me flaring. **“Pick it up with the people who handed me their genes.”**

**“Okay, okay. So you brought your sketch pad.”**

**“Yeah.”**

**“Are you going to show me your drawings?”**

**“Nope. I’m going to sketch you,”** I decided while I spoke. 

**“What if I don’t want to be sketched?”**

**“How am I going to be an artist if I can’t practice?”**

**“Don’t artists’ models get paid?”** he cocked an eyebrow.

**“Only the ones that are good-looking,”** I said. Instantly, regret rose in my chest. I pushed it down. 

**“So I’m not good looking?”**

**“Don’t be an asshole.”**

We were embarrassed. Well, I was a little embarrassed, but Ari’s face was so flushed he looked like he wasn’t even sick. 

**“I want to draw you.”**

**“Can I stop you?”**

I tossed him the book of poems I’d heaped into my arms before scrambling out the door. **“Read it. You read, I’ll draw.”**

**“Make me look good,”** he said, squirming under my gaze. 

**“Read. Just read.”**

Soon, he seemed to forget what I was doing, which made it easier to survey him. 

When I drew things, I looked at them differently than I would any other time. It was like absorbing them through my critical eyes, listing off the angles and curves and emotions playing through. I mapped out all the things you wouldn’t notice if you weren’t doing what I was. I was remaking the world. 

My eyes and hands and mind worked as one, a well-oiled machine made even smoother with practice. I stared down at the paper in front of me, unblinking, and my wrists and bony fingers did the work without much thought. 

I flipped pages and made different boys with the different expressions his face formed as he read. Little Aris all across my pad.

It struck me, once again, just how beautiful he was. It wasn’t that I wasn’t constantly aware of it (oh, I was), but in that moment I was thrust backward in time to the first day I’d seen him in the swimming pool. He hadn’t changed much since it hadn’t been long, so it wasn’t hard to relive the moment in my mind. 

The light from the window illuminated the scene, and my angle made it look like he was glowing. Glowing like an Angel. Angel Aristotle Mendoza. I’d sworn not to call him by his first name, but he couldn’t tell me what to think, so I thought about it. He was an angel. 

His tired eyes slid closed and his chest heaved slower and slower. 

I knew I should leave. But I couldn’t leave without giving him something. 

I glanced around until I decided. Climbing out of the rocking chair and onto the floor so I could see it better, my artists’ eyes were already working. In a few minutes, I gently smudged some of the shading. 

On the back, I wrote: 

**_Ari,_ **

**_I hope you like the sketch of your chair. I miss you at the pool. The lifeguards are jerks._ **

**_Dante_ **

What I did not write was that he was my favorite person in the whole world I wasn’t related to. I did not write that I missed him even when he was right there because I knew I would have to go home at the end of the day. I did not write that he made me feel like I was a person instead of a fascinating child prodigy. I did not write that if he didn’t need me a fraction of how much I needed him on a daily basis, I would probably combust out of embarrassment. 

Not that I would've wanted him to know that even if I had the ability to tell him. 

Later in the evening, he called me again. 

**“Why did you leave?”** he asked, sounding a little hurt. 

**“You needed to rest.”**

**“I’m sorry I fell asleep.”**

We paused. I didn’t know how to fill the silence. 

**“I liked the sketch,”** he finally offered. 

**“Why?”**

**“Because it looks just like my chair.”**

I smiled. **“Is that the only reason?”**

**“It holds something.”**

**“What?”**

**“Emotion.”**

**“Tell me.”**

**“It’s said. It’s sad and it’s lonely.”**

**“Like you,”** I said softly, without meaning to. 

**“I’m not sad all the time.”**

**“I know.”**

I knew. I just wished he could be sad even less. 

Wanting someone to be happy but not being able to help them with it was another strange feeling. Maybe life was a series of strange feelings. Maybe life was nothing at all. Or maybe I was right, and life was the space between everything and nothing. 

I would never know. 

Maybe _that_ was life. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm getting excited to write about Dante figuring out he's gay because the signs are overwhelming and it's hard to write them without making him see it! Dante, you're gay!
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com. <3


	18. Sparrows Falling From the Sky - Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Torture chambers, paint splatters, and habit. Existing in someone else's mind and is Dante a human person?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! How are we today?
> 
> This chapter is equivalent to two Ari chapters this time. I just couldn't think of anything to write for two chapters that would be worth reading at this point in the story, and each of the Ari chapters are half a page long. So, here we are. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapters recap: 1) The flu holds on. Bad dreams are scary. The fever returns. 2) Dante comes to visit. Dante has fears (gasp, a human trait) and Ari has no idea what they could be.

The human mind fell quite easily into habit. 

If you did something over and over again for long enough, you were bound to keep at it. For example, if you said a phrase like “today’s the day” to your family members every morning, soon enough you’d say it without even thinking. 

Habits were key to human existence in our world and our society. I knew that.

But when you had no choice but to give them up, it hurt.

It hurt when I gave up going to the park every morning to see Ari waiting for me, and then listening to him give me shit for waking up so late, and then walking to the pool to swim and make fun of the awful lifeguards, and then being stupid together until sunset. It hurt because those were the things I loved the most about life, and not having them was like torture because my brain automatically assumed I would be doing them. 

I was overreacting. Ari was sick. Things would be normal in a few days. Everything would be back to how it was before. 

In the meantime, I found myself trapped in the torture chamber of my own mind. 

Luckily, Ari invited me over. 

Neither of us had much fun. He sat in bed and pretended not to be awkward. I sat on the floor and pretended I didn’t notice. 

“Do you want to talk?” I asked. 

“No.” 

“Do you want me to go?” 

“No.” 

_Thank God._

I read him poems until my voice started to hurt. I read some of them to the ceiling while lying on my back, some of them pacing and gesturing and emoting like I was talking to a crowd for a school competition, some of them softly while sitting on the foot of his bed trying to convince myself I didn’t want to touch him. 

“Aren’t you afraid of catching what I have?” he asked me. 

"No.” 

“You’re not afraid?” 

“No.” It hadn’t even crossed my mind. 

“You’re not afraid of anything.” 

“I’m afraid of lots of things, Ari.” 

I looked up at him. His eyebrows were furrowed. He couldn’t understand that I had fears. 

I thought sometimes people existed in little bubbles in our mind. Tiny bubbles filled with everything we know about them. Then when something came up that you didn’t know before, you had to fit it in the bubble. 

It seemed Ari didn’t have any room for fear in mine. 

Ari didn’t have a bubble. He was everywhere in my brain. Splattered across the workings of it like the aftermath of a dropped paintbrush. He stuck there and never moved. I didn’t have any choice but to think about him, because his bubble had popped and left little pieces of him all over when I became sure he was my best friend. 

But the thing was, I didn’t really mind thinking about him at all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, Dante. :(
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com. 
> 
> Have a fantastic Global Pride!


	19. Sparrows Falling From the Sky - Chapter Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Distant yelling, cousins, and tomorrow. Secret siblings and shrugging over the phone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, I'm getting right to a Dante chapter. Sometimes you just gotta go for it, you know? There will be plenty of time to make up for the lost chapters when Dante's in Chicago. I'm also, once again, basically copying dialogue from the book without any substance because it's an important conversation and the chapter is largely just them talking. Oops.
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapters recap: 1) Thinkin' 'bout stuff: dreams, desperately wanting to not go to an all-boys school (hmm what does that allude to), growing, feeling "man things", family, swear words, his name. 2) A phone conversation with Dante.

“Oh, hello, Dante!”

“Hi, Mrs. Mendoza. May I talk to Ari?” 

“Of course, I’ll get him. One minute.”

I heard some nondescript shouting on the line and chuckled.

**“Hi,”** he said a few seconds later. 

**“Hi. What are you doing?”**

**“Nothing. I’m not feeling great. My mom’s taking me to the doctor this afternoon.”**

**“I was hoping we could go swimming,”** I said, trying to keep the disappointment out of my voice. 

I probed him until he told me what he was thinking about. 

**“You know, like how my two sisters and my brother are so much older than me and how that makes me feel.”**

 **“How old are they, your sisters and brother?”** I hadn’t known about the brother. Huh. 

**“My sisters are twins. They’re not identical, but they look alike. They’re twenty-seven. My mom had them when she was eighteen.”**

 **“Wow. Twenty-seven,”** I repeated. 

**“I’m fifteen and I have three nieces and four nephews.”**

**“I think that’s really cool, Ari.”**

**“Trust me, Dante, it’s not that cool. They don’t even call me Uncle Ari.”**

**“So, how old is your brother?”**

**“He’s twenty-five.”**

**“I always wanted a brother.”**

**“Yeah, well, I might as well not have one.”**

**“Why?”**

**“We don’t talk about him. It’s like he’s dead.”**

**“Why?”**

**“He’s in prison, Dante.”**

I froze. Oh. 

A bit later, I started again. 

**“At least you have siblings. Me, I only have a mother and a father.”**

**“What about cousins?”**

**“They don’t like me. I’m--well, they think I’m a little different. They’re really Mexican, you know. And I’m sort of, well, what did you call me?”**

**“A _pocho_.” **

**“That’s exactly what I am. My Spanish isn’t great.”**

**“You can learn it,”** he said. It sounded like he shrugged. 

**“Learning it at school is different than learning it at home or on the street. And it’s really hard because most of my cousins are on my mom’s side-- and they’re really poor.”**

I went on to explain that my mom had come from a family who wasn’t well off, to say the least. Her father told her that girls didn’t go to college, but she worked her way through anyway. I told him about my dad’s parents and their restaurant in LA. I didn’t tell him I was even further from those family members because I grew up with parents who had well-paying jobs and we lived in a big house. 

**“I live in their new world. But they understand the old world, that world they came from-- and I don’t. I don’t belong anywhere. That’s the problem.”**

**“You do. You belong everywhere you go. That’s just how you are.”**

I almost snorted. **“You’ve never seen me around my cousins. I feel like a freak.”**

**“I know. I feel like a freak too.”**

**“Well, at least you’re a real Mexican.”**

**“What do I know about Mexico, Dante?”**

I fell silent for a minute. **“Do you think it will always be this way?”**

**“What?”**

**“I mean, when do we start feeling like the world belongs to us?”**

**“I don’t know,”** he said. **“Tomorrow.”**

I smiled. If Ari was right, my parents had been wrong all those times they said today was the day. Because really, tomorrow was the day. 

Suddenly, growing up didn’t seem so hard after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wheeze at the chapter I skipped every time because Ari literally talks for three paragraphs solely about saying fuck and it's absolutely fantastic. Also, "take it outside, Jaime. Maybe you can find a dog who'll appreciate that kind of language." -Liliana Mendoza... She's a gift to the world. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	20. Sparrows Falling From the Sky - Chapter Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't watched the [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI_aFrtuVSY) of Benjamin Alire Saenz (I don't know how to do the accented 'a' in html) reading the first part of the sequel, you should. I cried. Unfortunately, the captions are subpar so keep that in mind if it's an issue. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari has a chat with his mom. They talk about his childhood, his dad going to war, his mom being a teacher, and how confusing his dad is. Ari does NOT like the word "someday."

After we hung up, I put the phone back and sat down next to my dad. He was reading again in the kitchen. 

“You read a lot.” 

“I’m an English professor, son.” 

“Yeah, but it seems like overkill, don’t you think?” 

“Well, I’m also writing a book.” 

“So you’re reading instead of writing?” 

“No. You have to read in order to be able to write. If I want to write a decent book, I have to look to the people who’ve already done so.” 

“Oh. That makes sense, I guess. Who are you looking to?” 

“To whom am I looking, Dante.”

I groaned. “To whom are you looking, Dad?” 

“Better. The people to whom I look are the people who write about topics similar to mine. My book is about English professor stuff, so I’m reading English professor books,” he explained. 

“That sounds boring.” 

“It’s not boring. It’s not very exciting, though.”

We smiled. 

I thought about that. You had to look at someone who succeeded in order to even dream of succeeding yourself. What did it mean to base your job, which in this case was writing, around somebody else’s idea? What did it mean to work and work and work, then be rejected for it because someone else does it better than you? 

It happened in every job. It happened in writing a lot. 

Maybe that was life. 

I didn’t want my life to be like that. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was quite short and I'll be back later with one or two other chapters. Thanks for reading!
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	21. Sparrows Falling From the Sky - Chapter Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Being dead, heartbreak, and it's only temporary. Rolling off the sofa and nine months.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh. The sad.  
> Endless thanks to [lostintheverse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostintheverse) for betaing and reminding me (once again) that Benjamin Alire Saenz is, in fact, a genius and an absolute gift from above. <3 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari finds his old journal and he feels some stuff, mostly about Bernardo. He writes a bit on a new page. "I think that if Dante really knew me, he wouldn't like me."

“Dante, can we talk to you for a minute?” 

“Yeah, sure,” I called back, rolling off the sofa and onto the floor. I picked myself up and slouched my way to the kitchen. I’d been reading for so long my bones were all melty. 

“Sit down,” my mom said. 

I slid into a chair and eyed them. 

“Dante…” my dad started. He looked like he didn’t know how to say something. I felt a sharp twist of fear in my stomach. 

“Yes?” 

“Can I just go ahead and say it?” my mom asked, putting her hand over my dad’s. 

He nodded. She swallowed. 

“Your father got a temporary job offer, and we’ll be moving for the school year.” 

I stopped thinking. I stopped breathing. My heart stopped beating.

“It’s in Chicago.” 

That was it. I was dead. I’d died and gone to Hell. I’d thought there would be more fire. 

“Dante, sweetheart?” 

“Uh, I…” 

My dad took my hand.

“I know this is a lot to take in, and that's okay. We understand and we're so, so sorry. This job would change my career for the better, and it's a great opportunity. But I'm not doing it just for me. I'm doing it for all of us. If we go to Chicago, I have an income, and your mother will have more clients. Right now, with my writing, it would just make so much more sense for us to go. We can keep the house and rent it out, if that makes you feel any better. It's only nine months unless I get offered a permanent position.”

“Nine months,” I heard myself whisper. 

“I’m so sorry. We just moved here, and now all over again… Dante, I can’t tell you how sorry I am. I just-” his voice broke. 

“I have to tell Ari,” I said. 

And that’s when I started to cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :(
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	22. Sparrows Falling From the Sky - Chapter Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shattering, infinity, and impossibility. Thinking without thinking at all and being glued together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, Dante.
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari goes to the doctor's office. He waits there with his mom for a few hours. They talk, of course. She tells him that maybe he'll be a poet. He thinks that's beautiful, too beautiful for him.

The tears were endless. An infinity flowed down my cheeks. 

I finally understood why all the writers said that someone could cry a river. I was well on my way there. 

Inconsolable. My mom used that word when she was on the phone with my aunt at their scheduled time. “He’s inconsolable. I don’t know how to help him.” 

I didn’t feel inconsolable. I didn’t feel sad. I didn’t feel anything. 

All I knew was that I had to stop crying. 

I had to stop soon, because it was beyond my control and crying wasn’t helping anything. Mostly, though, it was because I was going to see Ari. He was going to the doctor, and the doctor was going to tell him he was okay, and then he’d want to see me. I couldn’t be crying, then. He didn’t like it when I cried. I couldn’t tell if he didn’t like my tears because they meant I was sad or because he didn’t like tears at all. It didn’t matter. 

I had to stop. 

It was an unparalleled feat. It took hours. Eventually, though, all the impossible things either become history or they become attainable. Apparently, my task was attainable. 

When I finally ( _ finally _ ) stopped, I walked to the kitchen. I walked fast and I kept my chin up high. I took a glass and filled it with water, then tipped the whole thing down my throat. I did it again, and started on a third one. 

Next, I took a shower. I stood in the hot water and let myself feel the warmth. When I got out, I put on fresh clothes. Brushed my teeth, combed my hair. 

I stood in front of a mirror and took in the sight of me. 

My shattered fragments were glued back together. That didn’t make me whole. It made me less dangerous to touch. 

Although it wasn’t my strong suit, I didn’t think at all. I went all afternoon, reading, drawing, listening to a record, without thinking about anything. 

I was done crying about something I couldn’t fix. 

Maybe my life wasn’t really broken. Maybe I was. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, Dante. Oh, Dante. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	23. Sparrows Falling From the Sky - Chapter Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No feelings, common sense, and interviews. Pissed off snow and Ari's repressed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! I'm back with another entirely copied conversation! But this is a long chapter, so there's a ton of other stuff. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU: Ari isn't sick anymore, so he gets to go swimming. After they're done, they go to Dante's house. It hails. An interview for the position of Best Friend. They go for a walk and Ari learns that Dante's moving. There's yet another dying bird.

We met at the swimming pool the next day. 

I was going to tell him we were leaving. But for the time being, I just let myself be happy that we were together and shoved down the rising feeling of dread in my stomach. He was still tired. I swam while he watched. 

As I heard the first rumble of thunder, I thought back to the first day Ari was sick, when I’d sat alone and dejected outside the 7-Eleven, looking at the sky and guessing it would rain a week later. Here we were. What did it feel like, not knowing your whole world was about to change?

**“I won’t run if you don’t.”**

**“I won’t run,”** I said. 

We walked, side by side, in the summer rain. Cool droplets cut through the oppressive heat, washing the chlorine from our skin with their kisses. 

My dad made us put on dry clothes as soon as we made it home. He didn’t get too mad, probably because he knew he owed me, but he couldn’t  _ not  _ say something. 

**“I already know that Dante doesn’t have an ounce of common sense. But, Ari, I thought you were a little more responsible.”**

**“Fat chance, dad,”** I cut in. 

**“He just got over a flu, Dante.”**

**“I’m okay now. I like the rain,”** Ari said, looking down at his feet.  **“I’m sorry.”**

I gave my dad a look. He shook his head. He already knew. 

He lifted Ari’s chin with one of his gentle hands. **“Summer boys.”**

The way Ari looked at him broke my heart all over again. 

We talked about my dad until Ari started coughing. The two of us went into the kitchen and I tugged at his wrist until I’d pulled him into a chair so I could boil water for tea. 

The porch was covered and safe from the storm, so we sat outside and watched the clouds grow darker and the hail start, gusts of wind manipulating the heavy branches of trees until they looked like they could snap right off. I watched Ari watch, his dark eyes reflecting the scene and his eyebrows slightly furrowed. 

“Ari?” 

He didn’t respond. I tapped on his shoulder. 

**“We need to have a conversation.”**

**“A conversation?”**

**“A talk.”**

**“We talk every day.”**

**“Yeah, but I mean a talk.”**

**“About what?”**

**“About, you know, what we’re like. Our parents. Stuff like that.”**

**“Did anybody ever tell you that you weren’t normal?”**

_ You have no idea, Ari.  _ **“Is that something I should aspire to?”**

**“You’re not. You’re not normal. Where did you come from?”**

**“My parents had sex one night.”**

He looked deeply and truly uncomfortable for a second, like he was imagining it and the idea disturbed him on a spiritual level. Then he smirked. **“How do you know it was night?”**

**“Good point.”**

We laughed. I loved laughing with him. 

**“Okay, this is serious,”** I said, making myself stop smiling. 

**“Is this like a game?”**

**“Yes.”**

**“I’ll play?”**

**“What’s your favorite color?”**

**“Blue.”**

**“Red. Favorite car?”**

**“Don’t like cars.”**

**“Me neither. Favorite song?”**

**“Don’t have one. Yours?”**

**“‘The Long and Winding Road.’”**

**“‘The Long and Winding Road’?”**

**“The Beatles, Ari.”**

**“Don’t know it.”**

**“Great song, Ari.”** I had it on vinyl, of course. 

**“Boring game, Dante. Are we interviewing each other?”**

**“Something like that.”**

**“What position am I applying for?”**

**“Best friend.”**

**“I thought I already had the job.”**

I melted, then I remembered I couldn’t let myself do that. Not now, or I would start feeling things again.  **“Don’t be so sure, you arrogant son of a bitch.”** I punched him. 

**“Nice mouth,”** he said, laughing appreciatively. 

**“Sometimes don’t you just want to stand up and yell out all the cuss words you’ve learned?”**

**“Every day.”**

**“Every day? You’re worse than me.”** I turned to the hail. It made a faint clattering sound on the roof above us.  **“It’s like pissed off snow.”**

He laughed. My stomach did the stupid flipping thing again. I wasn’t supposed to feel anything today, dammit. 

**“We’re too nice, you know that?”** I said. 

**“What do you mean?”**

**“Our parents turned us into nice boys. I hate that.”**

**“I don’t think I’m so nice.”** I knew what he meant. The fighting and the anger.

**“Are you in a gang?”**

**“No.”**

**“Do you do drugs?”**

**“No.”**

**“Do you drink?”**

**“I’d like to.”**

**“Me too. But that wasn’t the question.”**

**“No, I don’t drink.”**

**“Do you have sex?”**

**“Sex?”**

**“Sex, Ari.”** I almost groaned at how repressed he was.  _ It’s just a word _ , my mom’s voice sing-songed in my head. 

**“No, never had sex, Dante. But I’d like to.”**

**“Me too. See what I mean? We’re nice.”**

**“Nice,”** he mused. His face screwed up. **“Shit.”**

**“Shit.”**

We laughed again. 

My questions continued for hours, until the hail stopped and we were left with a cool, cloudy day. The wind had slowed, and it was like everything stilled before I had to tell Ari that I… Before I had to tell Ari. 

We went for a walk, barefoot on the sidewalk. It was wet, of course, and its coolness brought me enough strength to get it over with. I sucked in a breath. 

**“We’re leaving for a year.”**

I turned to him and watched his eyes. His whole face froze in its scrunched position, looking like someone had knocked the wind out of him. 

He swallowed. **“Leaving?”**

**“My dad’s going to be a visiting professor for a year at the University of Chicago. I think they’re interested in hiring him.”**

**“That’s great.”**

**“Yeah.”**

**“That’s really great. So when are you leaving?”**

**“At the end of August.”**

I watched him count the six weeks and realize I’d miss his birthday. 

**“That’s great.”**

**“You keep saying ‘** **_that’s great_ ** **.’”**

**“Well, it is.”**

**“Yeah, it is,”** I said. It was great. And it was awful. Both and neither. 

**“Aren’t you sad, that I’m leaving?”**

**“Why would I be sad?”**

I smiled. Of course he wouldn’t tell me he would miss me. Of course. Even if his devastation was the most obvious thing in the world. I’d watched his face fall. I’d seen it. But of course, he’d say nothing. That’s who he was. 

He looked at me like he couldn’t figure me out. That made two of us. 

**“Look,”** I whispered, pointing. There was a bird lying in the street. It was trying to fly, but its wing was broken. I gasped as it made a little chirping sound. 

**“He’s going to die,”** Ari whispered back. He reached out to me, almost like he was trying to keep me from doing what I was about to do. 

**“We can save it.”**

I went to the bird. Its wing was badly bent, so I scooped it up in my hands and knelt in the road, looking at it closer. 

  
  


They say the brain can block out trauma. They say that, when something truly awful and scarring happens to the mind, everything goes black and you can’t remember it. It’s like your mind’s way of preserving itself. Almost like fainting, but you’re still conscious. 

Of course, my brain didn’t do a damned thing. 

It was more like watching from above, really. I saw my life change. 

Ari yelled my name. I looked up, too late. The car was already coming. The car was already there. Ari dove across the street and pushed me out of the way. My skin burned as the concrete scraped it. My arm bent wrong beneath me and sent searing pain through my body. The car ran over him. I screamed. The driver came out of the car. I screamed. My dad came out of the house half a block away and started running to us. I screamed. Everything hurt worse than I’d ever been hurt before. I screamed. Someone from the house we were in front of came out and offered to call an ambulance. I screamed. My dad held me as the flashing lights came closer and closer. I screamed, and screamed, and screamed. 

The world didn’t go black. It went white. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor boys. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	24. The End of Summer - Chapter One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when the world goes white.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an added chapter that takes place before Ari wakes up in the hospital.

As it turned out, the world going white was far worse than the world going black. 

When the ambulance arrived, they took Ari to the hospital in it, and my dad insisted on driving me himself. I was still screaming. I didn’t think I would ever be able to do anything but scream. 

My arm had broken, and I’d face-planted onto the road, so I looked (and felt) all beat up. Stitches over my eye, cast on my arm, a doctor wiping at the scraped skin and fussing with my black eyes. I’d stopped screaming, somehow, but everything was hazy and my brain wouldn’t do anything. 

All I could do was worry. And I couldn’t even do that. I couldn’t feel anything. 

When they let me out of the hospital room I’d been patched up in, I ran straight to the waiting room, my mom trailing behind and shouting at me to stop running. It didn’t matter. I kept running until I saw Mr. and Mrs. Mendoza. 

They both stood up. I stopped. 

For a few seconds, we just stared. 

Then Ari’s mom gathered me into her arms and rocked me back and forth. I physically couldn’t cry. She sobbed into my hair. 

  
  
  


All four parents wanted me to go home. 

“It’s okay, son,” Mr. Mendoza kept saying, like a broken record. 

“Dante, you need to rest,” my mom told me. 

“He’s going to be fine,” Mrs. Mendoza reminded herself out loud. 

“We can come back in the morning,” my dad promised. 

“No.” 

They weren’t in a position to argue for long. 

Ari’s surgery lasted hours. I paced the waiting room. My parents had gone home to shower and bring me a bag, since it was clear I wouldn’t be leaving any time soon. Mrs. Mendoza had gone to see if there was anything we could do to pass the time. There were several rooms for families to sit in, and we had one to ourselves. Mr. Mendoza watched me go back and forth on the carpet. I wasn’t thinking. I wasn’t feeling. I couldn’t even cry. 

“Dante Quintana.” 

I turned from where I stood and faced him. 

“Mr. Mendoza?” 

“Call me Jaime.”

“Jaime.”

“Dante.” He exhaled. “My wife has always been the one who’s good with this stuff. The kids went to her with their big feelings. I don’t have much practice with this, but I do know one thing. I know that it’s okay to feel scared.” 

“I don’t feel scared.”

“Son, you don’t have to-” 

“No. Scared isn’t even a word to me anymore. I watched my best friend be run over by a car and there was nothing I could do. He was hit by that car because he pushed me out of the way. He saved my life and put his life in danger. Scared isn’t something I can even think about, Jaime. I’m not scared. I went straight to panic.” 

We sat in silence. 

As soon as I said I’d been panicking, it became clear that I was. It took saying it aloud to process, but that’s what was going on. Like flipping a switch, it became clearer and clearer. 

Soon, my previously empty-brain resembled a run-on sentence, where I just kept thinking and thinking and thinking with no end because he almost died and it was my fault and he couldn’t even say it wasn’t because I was the only reason he dove in front of that car and I couldn’t stop thinking because if I stopped thinking I had nothing to do but feel and if I felt I would have to face the fact that I didn’t know what to do because he wasn’t okay and he almost died and he was hurt and I hurt him and if I added a period in the sentence it would end and bad things would happen if it ended and what would happen if he died because if he died there would be so many things I hadn’t taught him and told him and he wouldn’t know the world was more beautiful than he or I could even imagine and talking about your feelings was what set you free and I needed to tell him that I-

I loved him. 

I  _ loved _ him. 

The world stopped spinning. I didn’t breathe. 

I, a sixteen-year-old boy, was in love with my best friend, also a boy, who just jumped in front of a moving car and saved my life, and he was now in surgery. 

Well, fuck. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some things hurt to write. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https:smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	25. The End of Summer - Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Waking up, more panic, and more La Bamba. Giving up birds and boys don't cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Let me tell you, I go through chapter-by-chapter, with painstaking care, reading and listening to the audiobook and reading WHILE listening to the audiobook, consulting character charts and outlines... I can confidently say that this is a very sad book. Very, very sad. Very happy, yes, very insightful and beautiful and incredible, yes. All the good books, though, are the sad ones. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari wakes up. There are tears and hurried explanations and more tears, and then there's Dante. With Dante, of course, comes more tears, plus another explanation. So many tears. A No-Crying Rule. Still, the tears keep rolling. The dreams, as well.

I was still in the waiting room the next day. 

Thirty-six hours. That’s what the nurse told me when she asked if I was sure I didn’t want to go home yet during the check-in for my arm. 

It didn’t feel like thirty-six hours. It felt like minutes. It felt like an eternity shoved into the mere minutes I’d been there. How could I even complain when I’d almost killed Ari? When the circles under Jaime’s eye grew darker and darker as the day wore on and Mrs. Mendoza wasn’t running out of tears yet? 

After his surgery finished yesterday, they’d let me see him. His parents had sat with him a bit and told me he was mostly unresponsive, but the nurse came and got me anyway. Ari’d asked for me when he woke up, still woozy from shock and the anesthetic. 

While I walked down the painfully white hallway toward the room he was in, I prepared a big speech. I would tell him some really important things, like they did in the movies when someone was in a coma or something. I’d be brave, my words would be concise, and I most certainly wouldn’t cry.

The moment I stepped into the room, all that went out the window. Side effect of being in love, I supposed. 

I’d gone right to the side of his bed and fallen to my knees, the tears already blurring my eyes. I took his hand and held it, squeezed it. Jaime and Mrs. Mendoza stood at the wall opposite me, the turmoil of the past day-and-a-half radiating off of them. 

**“I’m sorry I’m sorry Ari Ari Ari forgive me forgive me,”** I sobbed. “Please forgive me Ari I’m so sorry I’m sorry Ari please…”

I sobbed and held onto his hand with both of mine. I couldn’t touch him anywhere else without hurting him. It looked like his entire body was broken. 

His head rolled toward me the slightest bit and I could see his eyes fluttering between open and closed. He started humming something, probably that song he liked so much called La Bamba. I sobbed harder. 

I loved him, and he was hurting. 

Today, though, my doctor wanted to check on me because I was there and it was convenient. I didn’t care what happened to me. It didn’t matter, because I had a fractured arm and a beat-up face and Ari was in the ICU with his entire Ari-self broken. 

As the doctor explained for the third time what to do if it hurt, a nurse popped her head in the room. 

I followed her into the hallway where Jaime waited for me. 

“He’s awake.” 

I gave a tense nod, trying not to wonder what I’d do if he was mad at me. 

He smiled at me when I walked in. I felt myself smile back as all the tension left my body. 

**“Hi,”** I said. 

**“Hi,”** he croaked. His voice was thin and scratchy.

 **“We sort of match.”** I lifted my casted arm a little. 

**“I got you beat.”**

**“Finally, you get to win an argument.”**

**“Yeah, finally. You look like shit.”**

**“So do you.”**

We paused, taking each other in. 

**“You sound tired,”** I said softly. 

**“Yeah.”**

**“I’m glad you woke up.”**

**“Yeah, I woke up. But it hurts less when I sleep.”**

**“You saved my life, Ari.”**

**“Dante’s hero. Just what I always wanted to be.”**

**“Don’t do that, Ari. Don’t make fun,”** I sat down in the chair next to his bed and fought the urge to take his hand again. **“You almost got yourself killed.”**

**“I didn’t do it on purpose.”**

**“You pushed me. You pushed me and you saved my life.”** Some tears escaped the corner of my eyes and I heard Mrs. Mendoza’s breath hitch behind me. 

**“Looks like I pushed you and beat the crap out of your face.”**

**“I’ve got character now.”**

**“It was that damned bird. We can blame it all on the bird. The whole thing.”**

**“I’m done with birds.”**

**“No you’re not,”** he said, furrowing his eyebrows as much as he could without wincing. 

More tears rolled down my cheeks. I bit the inside of my mouth. 

**“Knock it off,”** Ari scolded. **“My mom’s been crying, and now you’re crying--and even Dad looks like he wants to cry. Rules. I have rules. No crying.”**

**“No crying,”** I repeated, sniffling. **“Boys don’t cry.”**

**“Boys don’t cry. Tears make me really tired.”**

I laughed. Then I stopped, because how could I be laughing? **“You took a dive like you were in a swimming pool.”**

**“We don’t have to talk about this.”**

_Yes, we do, Ari_ . **“You dove at me, like, I don’t know, like some kind of football player diving at the guy with the ball,”** I said, even though I knew fuck all about sports. **“And you pushed me out of the way. It all happened so fast and yet, you just, I don’t know, you just knew what to do. Only you could have gotten yourself killed. And all because I’m an idiot, standing in the middle of the road trying to save a stupid bird.”**

 **“You’re breaking the no-crying rule again,”** Ari protested, eyeing my tears warily, **“and birds aren’t stupid.”**

**“I almost got you killed.”**

**“You didn’t do anything. You were just being you.”**

**“No more birds for me.”**

**“I like birds.”**

**“I’ve given them up. You saved my life.”**

**“I told you. I didn’t do it on purpose.”**

Everyone laughed. Ari smiled. 

I loved him. And he was alive. He was alive and telling me not to cry and refusing to play the hero in his own story, and smiling that smile that made my stomach do somersaults inside of me. 

I could worry about it later, I decided. When I got to Chicago, I could worry all I wanted about why I loved a boy. For now, I just needed to love him. 

And that was the easiest thing in the world. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So much love in Dante's beautiful heart. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	26. The End of Summer - Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inherited traits, parenting books, and eavesdropping. Locking yourself away and being forced to go home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! This'll be the last chapter until Monday, due to the fact that I'm visiting some family members in the middle of nowhere without internet connection this weekend. I think this one turned out well, though, so enjoy!
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: A doctor's appointment. Sam and Soledad come to visit without Dante. Uncomfortable conversation, learning more about Chicago, and attempted avoidance of the elephant in the room. "Aristotle Mendoza, I will love you forever."

My parents finally convinced me to go home. Ari would be staying in the hospital for several days, maybe even weeks. I tried to explain that I wanted to stay with him the whole time because everything hurting him was all my fault, and it was the least I could do. My mom shook her head at me when I told her that, all sad and giving up on explaining something. That was annoying, because it seemed like I was the only person who actually understood what was going on. Ari almost died because he saved my life, and now he and some adults were trying to tell me it wasn’t my fault. What kind of world did they live in?

But I ended up going home, because my mother making a decision wasn’t something you could change. My dad always said I got all of my stubbornness from her, and she would say I was weird and I got that from him, and then we’d all laugh. 

As soon as we got home, I was ambushed.

“Dante, we’d like to talk to you again.” 

I sat down at the kitchen table and stared at them. I knew it wasn’t going to be good, but the sooner it was over, the sooner I could go back to finding more ways to tell Ari “thank you” and “I’m sorry.” 

“How are you feeling about Chicago? The last time we talked you were… in shock,” my dad said. 

“I’m fine,” I grumbled. 

“You don’t need to do that. It’s just us. Besides, we’re asking, so we actually want to know,” my mom cut in. 

“Okay. How do I feel? Well, let’s see,” I started, feeling the anger of the past few days finally bubbling up inside me. “I think mostly, I feel like I wasn’t consulted. I feel a little like Dad made this choice because he wanted a better job and a more impressive resume, and you decided to go along with it because you get to take a leave of absence from work, Mom.”

“That’s not-”

“No, I’m not finished, Dad. Here’s the thing: I don’t want to go. I’m going to miss a year of swim team, and when I get back it won’t be the same because, contrary to popular belief in this house, nine months is a long-ass time. Don’t tell me not to say that, Mom, you asked about my feelings.” 

“Please, Dante, just-”

“Dad, when you ask me to talk, don’t interrupt me. I feel like if anyone wanted my input, I’d say, ‘Hey, that’s crazy! Your guest professorship is up, so maybe you should, I don’t know, apply for a permanent position instead of uprooting our lives for the second time in six months!’ And even if you asked me after you made the choice, I’d say, ‘I can stay here with Ari, because I know his parents will let me after everything that’s happened, and then I don’t have to have the absolute worst year of my life!’”

“I need to say s-” 

“Sweetheart, you need to li-”

“Stop doing that, I’m almost done. With all your talk, my whole life, about being a healthy family, it sure doesn’t feel like it’s true. Did you know the things I remember most about my childhood are these conversations, with us sitting down at a kitchen table and you telling me how to be a good person? Did you know it’s what I remember more than anything else, Dad? Mom? Well, guess what? I’m done with this. I’m done being forced to be the son who has to make himself into the perfect person because it’s what you saw for your hypothetical child and read in all your parenting books sixteen years ago. So you wanted to know how I’m feeling? Okay, I’ll tell you. I’m feeling like my perfect, saint-like parents aren’t practicing what they preach and I’m not a part of a family anymore. I’m just along for the ride. And I’m done with it. You can leave for Chicago.” 

I pushed back the chair so hard it fell over when I stood up, and bolted up the stairs into my bedroom, where I put on a record and cried and pretended not to hear the knocking on my door. 

I stayed in my room until I heard my parents’ car pull out of the driveway. They were going to see Ari alone, now that they didn’t have to watch my every move to make sure I wasn’t going insane at the hospital. When I knew they were gone, I went into the kitchen to get myself some food so I could last longer without seeing their faces. 

Later, when they were home and getting ready for bed after eating without me, I heard their voices through the door. 

“You know he didn’t mean it.” 

“No, I think he meant it more than anything he’s said to us for a long time.” 

“I know, but he didn’t mean to say it like he did. He feels so bad, Sam. The trauma is eating him from the inside out. He’s never felt anything like this, like he owes someone else his life or that someone was put in grave danger on his account, and neither have we.”

“God, I wish he didn’t have to go through this.”

“You know I do, too. But since he does, he’s trying to control something while everything around him is beyond his control. It’s basic psychology. He’s reaching for something he can do to be in control, and the first thing he found was Chicago. We knew he’d be mad, and this is just an amplification.” 

“That doesn’t make it easier, Soledad.” 

“I know, honey, I was there.” 

“What are we going to do? Can we do anything?” 

“I’m going to send him to a counselor. Lord knows he can use it for more than one reason. Lily and I talked and she might try to get Ari to go, too. He’s trying to control his surroundings with all these rules he keeps making, and he refuses to acknowledge that he’s done something good.” 

“A counselor. That could be good for him.” 

“Yes.” 

I plopped down onto my bed and sighed. I couldn’t even be mad without being analysed. 

Tomorrow, I decided, I’d have to sneak down to the kitchen to get something else to eat. I wasn’t coming out of this room for anything other than Ari. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHH FINALLY he gets to let out all the anger. Poor Dante (I'm using that expression a lot lately). 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	27. The End of Summer - Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Feeling chatty, a single tear, and low determination. The Aliens in Roswell and Ari just misses his morphine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back and gayer than ever! Anyone else have a weekend of depressing homophobic family?  
> There's a sweet moment with Lilly today, so I hope y'all enjoy (:
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Dante calls, Dante visits. Ari is offered the chance to see Dante's sketchbook.

In spite of all the stubbornness I was constantly accused of, I cracked the next morning and went into the kitchen when I woke up. 

Everything looked better after a night of sleep. My parents seemed surprised to see me. I didn’t kiss them. I just sat in the silence. 

“Ari’s mom gave us the number for the phone he’s allowed to use. You can call, if you want,” my dad said finally. 

“I will.” 

I didn’t. 

I couldn’t. 

If I called, I’d apologize and thank him again and he hated that. If I called, I’d have to remember how the sound of his voice made my stomach flip inside of me, and I’d have to pretend I wasn’t in love with him. If I called Ari and talked to him, it would make me remember all the ways my life wasn’t perfect. 

The day after that, however, I picked up the phone and dialed the number written in slanted writing that must’ve belonged to Mrs. Mendoza, forcing myself not to think. I was leaving soon, and there was no use trying to avoid the person I tried to make the most time for. 

I listened as whoever answered the phone handed it to Ari. 

“Hello?” 

“Ari.” 

“Dante.” 

**“Sorry I haven’t gone to see you.”**

**“It’s okay. I’m not really in the mood to talk to people.”** I wanted to ask him if he was ever really in the mood to talk to people. 

**“Me neither. Did my mom and dad tire you out?”**

**“No, they’re nice.”**

I told him about the counselor. I knew right away it was going to turn into a big joke.

**“How’s your face?”** he asked. 

**“I like staring at it.”**

**“You’re really weird. Maybe it is a good idea for you to see a counselor.”**

I cracked up. He chuckled. 

**“Does it still hurt a lot, Ari?”**

**“I don’t know. It’s as if my legs own me. I can’t think about anything else. I just want to yank the casts off and, shit, I don’t know.”**

**“It’s all my fault,”** I said softly into the phone. He couldn’t see me, but I still didn’t want to cry.

**“Listen, can we have some rules here?”**

**“Rules? More rules. You mean like the no-crying rule?”**

**“Exactly.”**

**“Did they take you off the morphine?”**

**“Yes.”**

**“You’re just in a bad mood.”**

**“This isn’t about my mood. It’s about rules. I don’t know what the big deal is--you love rules.”**

**“I hate rules,”** I protested. **“I like to break them mostly.”**

**“No, Dante, you like to make our own rules. So long as the rules are yours, you like them.”**

**“Oh, so now you’re analyzing me?”** I raised my eyebrows. 

**“See, you don’t have to go to a counselor. You have me.”**

**“I’ll tell my mom.”**

**“Let me know what she says.”**

We grinned, and I knew his was that almost-crooked Ari smile (you can hear it in his voice when he smiles).

**“Look, Dante,”** he sighed, **“I just want to say that we have to have some rules here.”**

**“Post-op rules?”**

**“You can call them that if you want.”**

**“Okay, so what are the rules?”**

**“Rule number one: We won’t talk about the accident. Not ever. Rule number two: Stop saying thank you. Rule number three: This whole thing is not your fault. Rule number four: Let’s just move on.”**

I thought back to the night before and my mom’s voice from behind my locked door. He was looking for control in a situation where there was none to be found. I hated that she was right. 

**“I’m not sure I like the rules, Ari.”**

**“Take it up with your counselor. But those are the rules.”**

**“You sound like you’re mad,”** I said tentatively. 

**“I’m not mad.”**

If I agreed to the rules, it wouldn’t be good, to say the least. Ari was the only person I wanted to talk to about the accident at present, considering my lingering anger with my parents and apprehension to a counselor and lack of other options. If I couldn’t talk to Ari about it, I had nobody else. But then, if I protested, he’d be mad at me for real. On one hand, I could relinquish my only way to stay sane and out of my head after the biggest traumatic experience of my life, and on the other hand, I could make the guy I literally owed my life to, and was secretly in love with, regret the fact that he saved me and hate me until the day I actually died, when he could celebrate and recall to everyone at the funeral what an asshole I’d been. 

Alright, maybe not  _ that  _ dramatic. But he wouldn’t be happy with me. 

**“Okay,”** I conceded. **“We won’t ever talk about the accident. It’s a stupid rule, but okay. And can I just say ‘I’m sorry’ one more time? And can I say ‘thank you’ one more time?”**

**“You just did. No more, okay?”**

**“Are you rolling your eyes?”**

**“Yes.”**

**“Okay, no more.** Can I come to see you later?” 

“Sure. Not like I’m going anywhere.” 

“Ari, you’re not making it any easier to follow those rules of yours.” 

He laughed. “Bye, Dante.” 

“See you soon, Ari.” 

Later, I packed a bag and shouted to my parents that I was going out. 

The bus wasn’t full by any means, but it wasn’t empty, either, so I ended up sitting right next to someone. 

“Hi,” he said. 

“Hi.” 

He was the chatty type, and so was I. He told me about aliens in Roswell, for some reason, and I just nodded along while I listened, occasionally cutting in to comment. Maybe it was weird to talk to a stranger on the bus. Maybe it was weird for an adult man wearing a long-sleeved shirt on an El Paso summer day to start a conversation with a bony teenage boy holding a backpack bulging with books. Maybe everything was weird. 

Weird, weird, weird. 

**“Don’t feel sorry for me. The doctor said I was going to heal very nicely,”** Ari said. He must’ve seen the look on my face. 

**“Very nicely?”** I parroted. 

**“That’s exactly what he said. So give me eight to ten or twelve weeks, and I’m going to be myself again. Not that being myself is such a great thing.”**

I laughed. He didn’t, so I stopped.  **“Are you going to initiate a no-laughing rule?”**

His face broke into a grin.  **“Laughing is always good. Laughing works.”**

**“Good.”**

I plopped down into the chair that sat by the bed and heaved my overstuffed book bag into my lap. The zipper’s sound cut through the hospital’s natural silence, just making me more acutely aware of it. 

**“I brought you reading material.** **_The Grapes of Wrath_ ** **and** **_War and Peace_ ** **.”**

**“Great.”**

I rolled my eyes at the sarcasm.  **“I could have brought you more flowers.”**

**“I hate flowers,”** he proclaimed passionately. 

**“Somehow I guessed that.”**

His gaze drifted from my smiling face to the books I’d put on his table. **“They’re fucking long.”**

**“That’s the point.”**

**“Guess I have time.”**

**“Exactly.”**

**“You’ve read them?”**

**“‘Course I have.”**

**“‘Course you have.”**

I took out my sketch pad as he shook his head at the books. I’d thrown it into the bag at the last second and decided on the walk to the bus stop that instead of drawing him, I’d show him the sketches. He’d probably think it was because he’d saved my life. I guess that was a little bit true, but it wasn’t really that. I didn’t know why. Because I loved him, maybe. Maybe it didn’t matter why. 

**“You going to sketch me in my casts?”**

**“Nope. I just thought that maybe you’d want to look at some of my sketches.”**

**“Okay,** ” he said flatly. 

**“Don’t get too excited,”** I shot back. 

**“It’s not that. The pain comes and goes.”**

**“Does it hurt right now?”**

**“Yes.”**

I fought back an apology and asked, **“Are you taking anything?”**

**“I’m trying not to. I hate the way whatever the hell they give me makes me feel.”**

He pressed the button on the side of the bed. The top half slowly bent upward so he was sitting up instead of lying down. I handed him the pad and stopped him when he tried to open it.

**“You can look at it after I leave.”**

He furrowed his eyebrows. 

**“You have rules. I have rules too.”**

He laughed. He really laughed, not the little huffs I’d heard from him since the accident. It probably hurt like hell, but he was so beautiful, even in the fluorescent lighting and the bright white sheets. My heart sank as it hit me all over again that the pain was because of me. 

**“Tell me about the people on the bus.”**

I smiled and started recounting the story Alien Man had told me. Ari stopped listening after the first few sentences, but it didn’t matter. I watched him as I talked. His shoulders relaxed the slightest bit and he smiled this soft smile I’d never seen before. Did he like my voice? Was it soothing? Was it just familiar enough to be comforting? Did he think of me a fragment of the way I thought of him? 

One of the books I’d brought had some good poems, so I read him a few. He shifted a little. Not in the mood. I shut the book cover. 

I talked to him some more, and he was starting to drift off. I took his hand in mine, turned it upward, and put the sketchpad onto his palm. He opened his eyes all the way and blinked himself awake again. 

As I made my way through the labyrinth of halls toward the exit, I saw Ari’s mom. We stopped to talk, and she fiddled with her armload of flowers and plate of food like it wasn’t physically possible for her to stand still. 

“Hello, Dante.”

“Hi, Mrs. Mendoza.”

“How was he?”

“He was okay. Seemed a little tired, but okay. Has he been good?”

“Not bad, I think.” 

“Good. And how’ve you been?” 

She stopped her constant motion. She didn’t say anything.

“Mrs. Mendoza, if there’s anything I can do-” 

“No, Dante. It’s been… hard. Watching him like this. It’s taken a lot out of me.” 

“I understand. I know you’ve been talking with my mom, and please tell us if there’s anything we can do. Anything at all. We can come more regularly so you can go home and rest, if you’d like.” 

A tear rolled down her face. I put one arm around her and her full arms in a half-hug. 

“I should go,” I said gently. 

“Yes, you should. And Dante?” 

“Hmm?” 

“You can call me Lilly, you know.” 

I grinned. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter of AADDTOSTU gives me whiplash every time because there's this long paragraph filled with Ari-isms, love for Dante, and other sweet stuff... it's like (paraphrased, I'm too lazy to get the actual quote) "Dante's voice was like a song" and then two lines later he's like "looking at him, the thought entered into my head that I hated him" or something to that effect, and it just. Breaks my heart. Every single time. The repression is real.
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	28. The End of Summer - Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another ambush, being wrong, and doers. Kinds of strength and sitting in your own silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All my love and gratitude to [lostintheverse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostintheverse/pseuds/lostintheverse) for betaing, nerding out with me, and being the world's biggest sweetheart. One of those people who make you wish for more words in the English language that mean "thank you." 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Lilly walks in on Ari throwing the sketchbook across the room. She asks him about it and he gets salty because he doesn't like to talk about things. He gets aggressively salty as the conversation wears on and suggests that his parents see a counselor for their issues and then he'll consider doing it for his.

On the bus ride home, there was no strange man to tell me about aliens, so I sat in my own silence and thought. I did that a lot. 

Lilly. She was strong. She was a woman who flew into action at a moment’s notice. She was a doer. That’s just what she was; she did things that needed to be done. What would we do without the doers? What would the doers do without the thinkers?

Ari. He was a different kind of strong. He was a thinker, and he used all of his thinking to block out everything he felt inside of him. I didn’t know what to do about that. I just knew I loved him. 

My parents. They were their own breeds of people. They were thinkers and feelers and doers and changers all at once. To me, they were the space between everything and nothing that I called life. 

The thing about people, I was coming to understand, was that they didn’t like admitting when they were wrong. I didn’t like it, either. I didn’t like people who couldn’t apologize. I’m not sure if I wanted an apology as much as I wanted them to admit they were wrong.

They were wrong when they decided that it was acceptable to move us to Chicago. They were wrong when they assumed I would forgive them just because they were aware that it was shitty. They were wrong when they assumed I was going to go along without a fight. They were wrong when they decided all I was good for was lecturing about being a good person and living a good life because they dreamed it up for their imaginary child at the beginning of their marriage. They were wrong my whole life, and it was about time they owned up to it. 

“Dante?” I heard the moment I shut the door. 

I didn’t respond. 

“Dante, is that you?” 

“Yes.”

“Good, good. Come here,” my mom poked her head just far enough down the stairs so I could see it. 

“No thanks.” 

“Please, sweetheart,” she said, “I want to explain some things.”

“No thanks.” 

“I know you overheard something, and that wasn’t how I was planning to bring up counseling, so I wanted to talk to you.”

“I’ll pass.” 

“I know this is hard-” 

“No, Mom. You don’t know. It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours since I told you how I feel about all this. If you aren’t going to apologize without being prompted, I’m not interested in hearing it. I’m allowed to be angry. You’ve told me, time and time again, that anger is a toxic and unnecessary emotion, but I’m allowed to feel this way right now,” I replied, my voice perfectly even. “If you have a problem with my feelings, you should spend some time thinking about how many changes are going on in my life right now. Maybe you’ll understand the psychology better than you understand parenting.”

She looked hurt. 

Good. 

I brushed past her on my way to my bedroom. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HANDS HAVE BEEN THROWNNN (but like, verbally)
> 
> [lostintheverse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostintheverse/pseuds/lostintheverse) had to tell me to rein it in because it was nastier at first. Am I mean? It's possible. Maybe I just like writing arguments. Also possible. 
> 
> In this chapter of the book, Lilly tells Ari that "Big Brother is watching him" so I'll be including a 1984 reference at some point here because if BAS can do it, so can I, dammit. An amazing book mentioned in an amazing book. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	29. The End of Summer - Chapter Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More scheduled phone calls, chills, and percentages. The echo of a memory and holding something back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you ever read AADDTSOTU and just start yelling at Ari? Typically, I shout, "YOU'RE GAY BRO." Just, whenever he says something that's very obviously gay, which is like every single page. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari's dad visits him in the hospital. He gets ready to go home by doing things like practicing using his wheelchair, which he names Fidel. Ari gets to go home, but not before threatening to say "the f word" in front of Lilly if she keeps hovering.

I got the flu. Fever, chills, night sweats.

I had dreams. I didn’t want to think about them. They were about Ari and losing him and about a slippery road and the smell after rain and a dying bird and a car that was going just a little too fast and the blur of ambulance lights when your whole world goes white. I didn’t think about them. 

When I was sick, I suffered alone and relied on my parents as little as possible. Twice a day, I called Ari to see what he was doing and to hear his voice. Once, I called three times, but the entire time we were on the phone, all I could think about was how annoying I must’ve been, making the phone ring three times in one day. After that, two was my set number. 

I spent my time in solitude wondering about loving him. Thinking about why I loved a  _ boy _ was for Chicago, so I didn’t let myself do that yet, but I thought about how I loved him and if he could love me. He’d saved my life. Did boys even like other boys? Surely I couldn’t be the only one. But was there a percentage of the population, or something? What were the chances he could like boys, too? 

That was too closely related to thinking about the boy thing, so I stopped myself and went back to the way my stomach did that thing when he laughed. 

Before I left, I wanted to tell him I loved him. 

I mean, you could say that to your friends, right? I’d heard my mom say it to her friends at the end of a phone call before. Being a boy didn’t change that, I thought. Those words could mean lots of things, actually. There were different kinds of love. If I said, “Hey, Ari, I love you,” that could mean, “You’re my best friend and I think of you in a completely platonic way but I really value your company and I’d like to express that in words,” right? 

So one day, during our evening phone call, I decided to go for it. 

**“I want to say something to you, Ari.”**

**“Okay.”**

I opened my mouth to say it and my voice died in my throat. 

**“What?”** he said. 

**“Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”** It mattered more than anything. 

**“Okay.”**

**“I wish we could swim again.”**

**“Me too.”**

He got to go home. I wondered what it would be like when my home was in a different state than his. The time zones would be different, and it would be an hour later in Chicago than in El Paso. We’d watch the sunset at slightly different times, maybe ten or fifteen minutes apart. We’d look at the same stars, but I wouldn’t be able to see them because of all the light pollution. We’d both wake up and go to sleep and take showers and eat good food and get sick sometimes and go to school and wonder about the secrets the universe kept hidden from us and live our lives, but we’d be apart. 

He was the air I breathed. No, he wasn’t. He was more than that. He was made of every book he’d ever read, every tear he’d ever held back, every cuss word he’d ever mumbled, every time he’d ever grinned his quiet smile, every time he’d made someone laugh. He wasn’t air. He could never be air. Air was something everyone knew they needed, but nobody saw. Ari wasn’t like that. I could see him, even when he insisted he couldn’t be seen. I could see him. 

I was going to tell him, consequences be damned. I couldn’t go on living without saying it. Love wasn’t something I was good at holding back. 

Love wasn’t something that deserved to be kept inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I often think about how different it would've been for them if they story had been set in the present (well, not 2020 as-is, but you get the idea). What if Dante'd grown up hearing that love is love? What if Ari's grown up with gay people in the media? What if???
> 
> Anyways, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com. Thank you for reading!


	30. The End of Summer - Chapter Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warm voices, overthinking, and a throw pillow. Fighting everything and there's a lot going on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi friends!   
> This was an interesting chapter to write because it's Dante's first counseling appointment. I've never been to counseling or therapy, much less in '87, so I was flying blind here. If you have, it's likely that this won't be true to your experience. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari goes home. He learns to get around on Fidel (the wheelchair), he smiles at Lilly a lot, his sisters come over for dinner, and he decides to read instead of watching television.

“Dante, I’d like to talk to you.” 

“I’ve heard that sentence way too many times in the past week.” 

“I know you have. It won’t take long.” 

I sat down across from her at the table (again), fully prepared to storm out with harsh words on my tongue (again). 

“Your father and I are aware that you heard us talking the other night.” 

I hummed a flat response. 

“That’s not how I wanted to tell you about the counselor. You know that. We didn’t realize you were awake until we heard you moving around when we finished in the bathroom.” 

I didn’t say anything. 

“Going to a counselor is going to be good for you, Dante. Better than anything your father and I can provide you. I’ve already gotten you your first appointment, and it’s with one of my colleagues. She’s earned very high praise in the past. I think you’ll really like her.”

"Another decision made without me.” 

“This is about your health. If I’d asked you and you said no, it wouldn’t have mattered, because I’m your parent. I’m in charge of you medically, by law. As much as I would like to give you the choice, I can’t. A counselor is absolutely necessary, and I’m sorry to have to choose for you.” 

“I was going to say yes.” 

“You were?” she asked, clearly surprised. 

I nodded. I’d thought about it, and a counselor didn’t seem like a terrible idea. Just a person who listened to your thoughts, which I had a lot of. Maybe it was uncharacteristic for me to go along with authority, but I was tired of fighting everything in my life. And I was fighting  _ everything _ . 

“Yeah, I was going to say yes.” 

She smiled a little. “Your first appointment is tomorrow.” 

The next day, my mom drove me to the counselor’s office. It was the same building where she worked, but she assured me that the doctor I’d be seeing wasn’t someone she knew. They worked different days and had barely met. 

As we sat in the little waiting room on flat folding chairs, my leg bouncing up and down, I wondered about what Ari was going to do. He probably needed to see someone as much as I did, if not more. 

I decided, also, that since I was there, I would make the most of it.  _ I’d tell the counselor everything _ , I thought,  _ I might as well get something out of it _ . 

“Hello,” a warm voice said from behind me. 

“Hi,” I said, turning around. 

“I’m Doctor Guerra. My office is just this way.” She extended an arm toward a hallway. 

I looked at my mom, even though I was still mad at her.

“Go ahead, Dante,” she said, nodding. 

I got up and followed Doctor Guerra into a small room with a window. She gestured to the seating and sat behind an immaculate small-ish wooden desk. I took the soft chair in front of her desk and held the throw pillow in my lap. 

“As I said, my name is Doctor Guerra. I’ve been a counselor and occupational therapist for twelve years now. Your mother spoke to me on the telephone a few days ago. I learned that she works here, and was reminded of meeting her when she accepted her position back in March.” 

“Yeah, she said she didn’t really know you.” 

“That would be correct. Before we begin, I want you to know that anything you say in this room is completely private. It’s important for you to remember this as your safe space to tell me whatever you need to talk about.” 

“I understand.” 

“Good. Would you like to tell me a bit about yourself?” 

“Sure. My name’s Dante Quintana, I’m sixteen… My family moved to El Paso from California a couple of months ago… I like to read, and draw, and… I hate shoes.” 

She smiled. I didn’t think counselors were allowed to laugh at something someone told them. “That’s great, Dante, thank you.” 

Talking to Doctor Guerra was a weird feeling. She was pretty much a complete stranger, and if you asked me about her I would be able to tell you maybe three things about her life, total. But it felt like I could talk to her, which I guess was the point. The way she asked questions about my life and what happened to me made me feel like I could tell her about the real thing. 

I did. She asked if there was anything I felt like I needed to say, and I talked for probably twenty minutes straight about everything. Moving to El Paso and feeling like the world was ending. Meeting Ari. Being best friends with Ari, even though he was distant. The accident, which I told with tears in my eyes. The hospital. The looming move to Chicago. 

I didn’t tell her that I was in love with Ari. I didn’t know much about boys who liked other boys, but I knew that even people like Doctor Guerra didn’t want to hear about it. 

“It sounds like you have a lot going on,” she said when I finished. 

“Yeah, I guess I do.” 

“My first question, I think, has to be about how you’re feeling about everything. You told me the stories. How does everything you have on your plate make you feel?” 

“I guess…” I trailed off. “I guess I don’t know. It’s a lot. I mean, sometimes I get to thinking about it all, and I feel really weird and I have to think about something else.” 

“Would you say it’s a feeling of being overwhelmed?”

“Sure, overwhelmed. But it’s my whole life, so I don’t know how to not think about it constantly. I shut it down when I can, but it just creeps back in as soon as I’m not trying really hard.” 

“How does it make you feel, that you can’t stop thinking about all of your trauma?” 

“It makes me feel like shit,” I said, raising my eyebrows and throwing up my hands before realizing what I'd said. “Sorry.” 

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve heard worse.” 

“I’m sure you have. It feels terrible, because if I can’t even control my own brain, how am I supposed to control anything in my life?” 

She didn’t say anything for a moment. “Would you like to say that again, Dante?” 

“...if I can’t even control my own brain, how am I supposed to control anything in my life?” 

“It sounds, to me,” Doctor Guerra began gently, setting down a clipboard she’d been holding, “that you feel that the accident, and the trauma that has come with it, is overtaking your life. You can’t do anything about it, and that’s bothering you.”

“Yeah.” 

“I think…” she trailed off, choosing her words. “I think that we have some work to do.” 

I laughed, and she smiled. “Yup.” 

“I also think that you have a habit of overthinking things.” 

“Right again.” 

“Overthinking things is causing tension in your everyday life. Your relationship with your parents, your relationship with your friend, Ari, and your relationship with yourself.” 

“What can I do about it?” 

“I don’t know if I have an answer for that right now. Do you?” 

“No, that’s why I’m asking.” 

“What if we talk twice a week? I would suggest once a week, but I know you’re leaving soon. The next time we see each other, we’ll come up with a plan.” 

“That sounds good.” 

“I’d like you to think about why you think about things so much.” 

“Weird.” 

“Yes, weird. Also, the next time you come, we’ll talk through your trauma and how that’s affecting your anxiety and tendency to overthink. I’d like you to remember, though, that your trauma is going to have those affects, and having them can give you that out-of-control feeling you described. It’s not your fault, and we’re going to work on it together. Do you understand?” 

“I do.” 

“Great. I’ll speak to your mother about subsequent appointments.” 

“Thank you, Doctor Guerra.”

“You’re welcome, Dante.” 

She walked me back down the hall to my mom. We said goodbye. 

“How was it?” my mom asked me in the car. 

“It was good.”

“Good.” 

Maybe it wasn’t good yet. But it would get there. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully this wasn't too bad? I honestly don't know, because 1987 was a different world when it came to mental health awareness. Soledad's a psychologist, yet nobody calls her "Doctor Quintana," and nobody calls Sam that either, although if this took place today they would both most likely possess PhD's. I don't know. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	31. The End of Summer - Chapter Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a little one! Nothing too interesting. I'm tired and gay and anxiously awaiting the title of the sequel (don't even get me started on the sequel itself, I lost the ability to think for several minutes when I saw the tweet announcing it). 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari's at home and sorta bored. Dante comes over everyday.

The summer of 1987 was a rainy one for El Paso. It seemed that every single day, the sky would churn dark and shed its liquid kisses. It was like clockwork, each afternoon. 

I was like clockwork, too. Visiting Ari every single day, just as the rain visited us. 

Ari was melancholy and tired, so I would talk about everything and nothing and all that fell in between as he listened and occasionally interjected with something clever. I watched him sit up in his bed, or sit in Fidel the wheelchair, or sit on the couch in the living room, or sit anywhere else because he never walked around. Watching him sit so much and remembering that I did that to him was like a punch in the gut when I walked into the room. 

I kept going to see Doctor Guerra. She gave me some techniques, and I was talking through my crazy thoughts, and she was telling me it was all normal for someone with my experience. Not that lots of people were saved from certain death by their best friends they were secretly in love with on rainy days. A victim of a traumatic experience, she called me. 

When I learned that Ari had never read  _ The Sun Also Rises _ , I told him I’d read him a chapter every day. Reading books aloud was nice. I liked it, and I was good at it. He didn’t seem to mind it too much. We would talk about the chapter when I finished. 

**“It’s a sad book,** ” he told me one day.    
**“Yeah. That’s why you like it.”**

**“Yeah. That’s exactly right.”**

I told him I’d gone to see the counselor. He didn’t say anything. 

He seemed to notice my expectant look. 

**“What?”** he said. 

**“Are you going to go?”**

**“Where?”**

**“To see a counselor, you idiot.”**

**“No.”**

**“No?”** I thought he needed to go. He needed to do something, at least. My own brain sounded like my mother. 

I let my eyes wander down to Ari’s casts, then snapped them back up to his face. Could I say I was sorry again? It was all I thought about. He couldn’t see that we needed to talk about it. 

**“Are you going back?”**

**“Maybe,”** I said. It was sort of true; I could stop going whenever I wanted. 

He nodded and looked down at his hands.  **“Talking doesn’t help everybody.”**

I smiled at him when he looked back up. **“Not that you’d know.”**

**“Yeah. Not that I’d know.”**

He was smiling back at me.

He was hopeless. We were both hopeless, actually. 

I was just hopelessly in love. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't have anything to add today! Wow!
> 
> Nothing except thank you for reading <3
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	32. The End of Summer - Chapter Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Understanding, whispers, and weariness. Deafening actions and balanced equations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It kind of hit me today just how insane I am. Like why would I ever rewrite an entire novel in a different POV and stick exactly to canon? Who does that? Apparently me. I don't regret it but I'm still baffled. What was going on in my brain??
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari gets a sponge bath from Dante (AKA: the softest scene you've ever read).

“Good morning, Lilly.” 

“Good morning, Dante.” 

“Is it alright with you if I give Ari his sponge bath today?” 

She looked up from the newspaper and eyed me thoughtfully. 

“It’s alright if you’d rather I didn’t,” I assured her quickly. 

“No. Go ahead,” she said. Her smile was beautiful, like Ari’s. 

I knocked on Ari’s bedroom door and let myself in. 

“Hi,” he said wearily. 

“Hi. I’m giving you a sponge bath today.” 

He furrowed his eyebrows. 

**“Is it okay?”**

**“Well, it’s kind of my mom’s job.”**

**“She said it was okay.”**

**“You asked her?”** The eyebrows shot up from their lowest position on his face to their highest. 

**“Yeah.”**

**“Oh. Still, it’s really her job.”**

**“Your dad? He’s never bathed you?”**

**“No,”** he said, like I was crazy and the idea hadn’t occurred to him. 

**“Shaved you?”**

**“No. I don’t want him to.”**

**“Why not?”** I asked. 

**“I just don’t.”**

I fell silent. He looked at me.  **“I won’t hurt you,”** I whispered. 

His face broke open for a second and he looked like all the pain of an entire lifetime had just settled inside of him. It hurt to even watch. Almost as soon as it had come, though, the expression passed and he was back to looking stoic and slightly confused. 

**“Let me,”** I told him. 

“Okay.” 

I’d thought that, since Ari didn’t want me to thank him with words, all I had left were actions. There was that phrase, “actions speak louder than words,” and I thought that was a nice idea. But to me, words were the things that I knew how to use. Talking was like floating. Reading was like learning how to breathe all over again every time I started a new book. Words weren’t silent. They weren’t quiet. Words, to me, were the loudest things that could ever be. One of those secrets of the universe I’d told Ari I would find, that night under the stars. If actions were louder than words, actions must have been so loud my ears didn’t have the capacity to hear them. 

That was okay. Maybe Ari would understand. 

We gathered what we needed. His eyes slid shut and he went almost limp, like I could move his limbs as I went without difficulty. 

When I wet the cloth and finally brought it towards Ari’s skin, my hands were trembling slightly. 

His skin was soft and warm. My fingers glided, slowly, carefully, over his shoulders and down his arms. I stopped thinking and let myself just feel. 

I hadn’t touched him before, not really. Grabbing him by the wrist and pulling him when I wanted to do something, brushing against him, whispering into his ear… nothing compared to running my hands over his entire top half. The cloth was soft and warm with bath water, and my hands soon grew damp, fingertips wrinkled. 

How many times had I wanted to touch him before? How many nights had I stayed up, running my fingers up and down my own palm and trying to imagine doing the same to him, only to wake up in the light of the morning and pretend I didn’t care? I’d thought about something just like this too long, too hard. As I worked the cloth and soap in the water, I wondered if I’d ever do this again, but not under the guise of a bath. 

I was slow and sure and gentle. His expression was perfectly blank as I washed his chest and back. 

I started crying at some point. I didn’t realize it for a few minutes, not until I was finished shaving him. 

Ari’s eyes fluttered open. I watched the moment when he saw the tears on my cheeks, his refusal to react. His features hardened, slightly. 

We did that to each other, sometimes. He made me even softer than I already was. I made him even harder than he already was. Not quite a balanced equation. How could you love someone who was so different from you?

I wiped my tears and rinsed their salty droplets in the washtub.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been blessed with some fanart! Tomorrow I'll figure out how to put it in author's notes because it's gorgeous and I want y'all to see it. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	33. The End of Summer - Chapter Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Relief, March of '87, and inward groaning. Living with the pain and Sam didn't raise his child like that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome! Now really, what's the point of writing fanfic if you're not going to force characters to talk about their issues? I couldn't help myself. It had to be done at some point. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Lilly and Jaime offer Ari a car for his birthday and proceed to fight over who's giving him driving lessons.

“I really don’t want to, though. That’s the problem.” 

Doctor Guerra looked at me patiently, but it was mostly poorly-concealed amusement. “Dante, I understand that. You’ve told me several times.” 

I smiled. “Yeah, I guess I did.” 

“You did. You know that you never have to do the things I encourage you to, but I really think it could be good for you. At least sitting down to have a conversation.”

“Now, that’s my parents’ specialty. I think ‘we need to talk’ might be the most common phrase in my house.” 

“It can be difficult. You have so much going on. I don’t need to tell you that, you know. Staying angry with your mother and father is adding to it all, and it’s weighing you down.” 

I sighed. “Fine.” 

Sessions with Doctor Guerra were going well. She kept asking me to forgive my parents, though. Twice a week, I would talk to her about everything that was going on and we’d work on how I could feel better about it. Then, right before I’d leave, she’d jump in and say something about my parents, then I’d groan inwardly and avoid the topic. 

This time, though, she was direct about it. I fought her for a few minutes, but she got to me. 

On the car ride home, I was silent. My mom cleared her throat a few times, like she was going to talk but wanted me to start the conversation. When I didn’t say anything, she turned on the radio. 

That evening, after we finished eating, I sighed and said, “I think we should talk.” 

The relief on my parents’ faces was almost comical. They sat down at the kitchen table, where all the big talks happened. 

“So, I guess I should be clear right away,” I began. “I’m not going to forgive you right now. At least, not all the way. You should say what you want to say, and we can talk about it, but I reserve the right to stay mad.” 

“Yes, you most certainly have that right,” my mom said. She glanced at my dad. 

“I think,” he started carefully, “that we weren’t being entirely clear about Chicago. I’d like to run through what’s going to happen again. Is that alright?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Okay. The first thing we should know is that my guest professorship at UTEP is over, and I wasn’t offered a permanent position. I was looking for another guest professorship, and I ended up finding the one in Chicago. After I found it, I called and spoke to someone about it, then I spoke with your mother about what that would mean for us. We’d already gone through the finances, and we knew that we wouldn’t make enough money if we stayed in El Paso and I didn’t have work. 

“After a lot of thought, we decided that it would be something to look into further. I applied officially, and they found us an apartment in a decent part of the city. It made a lot of sense for us to move.” 

I sat for a moment, nodding and thinking about it. 

As much as I wanted it to be a selfish choice so I could stay angry, I knew it wasn’t. He was right in almost everything that he did… 

“Except, you didn’t ask me.” 

“Right.” He shifted, looking a little uncomfortable. “This was all right after we moved here, actually. I knew that there was a chance I’d be out of a job right away, and I started looking. At that point, you didn’t care for El Paso. There was no reason to stay.” 

“This was in  _ March _ ? As in, four months ago?”

“Yes. I’m not saying we made the right choice… But we made it. We wanted to tell you during the summer some time, so you wouldn’t have the added stress during the school year. You seemed to have found a reason to want to stay, though,” he added softly. 

“Guess I did.” 

“You did. And we knew that we’d be leaving, so telling you seemed like it would just ruin everything for you. We had to make the choice to tell you at some point, and since it was six weeks out, we just decided it was time. But then there was the accident…” he trailed off. My mom put her hand on his back. 

“The accident brought out a lot of feelings in all of us, Dante. We remembered that life is short, which is something that people tend to remember when someone dies or comes close to it. You wouldn’t have died,” she said sternly, “but you were hurt, and so was Ari.” 

“As soon as you got to the hospital, we knew we should’ve told you sooner,” my dad said, his voice so close to breaking.

I didn’t say anything for a moment. 

I guess I’d kind of forgotten how hard it was for them. I focused on Ari, and then on Lilly and Jaime, because they were the ones most visibly affected. Something inside me, though, knew that if Ari hadn’t been there and done what he did, I would be dead. There was no doubt. My parents knew it, too, no matter how many times my mom stubbornly insisted it wasn’t true. They had to live with the fact that their only child was only alive because he was saved by someone else. 

“I understand.” 

“You do?” my dad asked. 

“I think so. I wish you’d done it differently, but I get it.” 

“Good,” my mom nodded. “Now for the other things you heard. Again, we didn’t realize you were listening until after we finished talking that night. It was absolutely not how we wanted to tell you. The counseling has proven to be a good idea, and I’m glad it worked out. But you were right. We try very hard to be the best parents we can be, and for us, that means trying to make you the best human being possible by teaching you life lessons. We know that it can get overwhelming, and sometimes you just need parents instead of teachers.” 

“And we’re so, so sorry, son,” my dad said seriously. 

“I’m sorry, too.” 

“For what?” 

“Everything I said. I’m not the kind of person to yell when I get mad. I’m alarmingly articulate, actually,” I pointed out. They smiled a little. “I meant what I said, but mom was right. I didn’t mean to say them like that. I never would’ve chosen to talk to you about it that way. It was like a faucet everything came pouring out of.”

My mom reached out and took my hand. My dad took my other one. 

“Thank you, Dante.” 

“Sure, Mom.” 

We sat for a minute, not saying anything. 

“Dante?” 

“Yeah, Dad?” 

“‘A faucet out of which everything came pouring.’ I didn’t raise you to end sentences with prepositions.” 

I groaned. My mom shook her head. 

“It was a good comparison, though.” 

“Sam?”

“Soledad?”

“Stop talking.”

“Yes, dear.”

We laughed. 

Everything was going to be alright, even if I wasn’t ready to forgive yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A nice, cleansing conversation.   
> Thank you for reading!!
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	34. The End of Summer - Chapter Eleven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Explosions, wishes, and porch steps. Melting insides and the kind of dread that comes in waves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had lot's of fun with this! Hope y'all enjoy. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: A conversation with Dante.

With my newfound partial forgiveness of my parents, my life seemed a little bit more like normal. Like normal, plus knowing I’d be moving soon, plus being in love with my best friend, plus visiting said best friend everyday because he’d been hospitalized after saving my life and was now stuck at home recovering. 

Ari wasn’t taking well to staying at home. He seemed restless, and he was stuck hobbling around on crutches after his arm cast came off. I felt bad when I saw him, but I never told him I was sorry, which was a good thing since he hated it so much. 

One day in early August, I came over and his hair was wet. I thought his mom had washed it for him, but he grinned at me and said, “I took a shower.” 

**“Your smile is back,”** I told him. 

**“Smiles are like that. They come and go.”**

I wanted to tell him that I wished his smile never had to go. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. More beautiful than the stars, or the Texas sky, or any of the other incredible things I’d seen in my sixteen-year life. Ari’s sideways smile topped it all. 

I thought about how I wanted to tell him I loved him. It was the end of August and there was only a week or so until I was leaving for Chicago, so I knew I had to do it quickly. 

I drew up a plan in my head. I was going to say that I loved him. Maybe I’d attach it to a sentence so it wasn’t so awkward. And then he could take it however he wanted it to. He’d probably think I meant it like, “Hello, best friend, I enjoy your presence, appreciate your personality, and am overall satisfied with you as a person.” Just a polite and agreeable statement of camaraderie, that was all. He didn’t have to know what I meant. 

That evening, I went over to see him. 

We sat on the front porch steps and I stretched out my formerly broken arm. He stretched out his. 

**“All better,”** I said. 

He smiled. My heart skipped a beat and I smiled back. 

**“When something gets broken, it can be fixed,”** I told him, stretching out my arm again.  **“Good as new.”**

**“Maybe not good as new, but good anyway,”** Ari said. 

And that was such a perfectly Ari thing to say that I knew, right then, I had to tell him. I had to tell him or I was going to explode, bigger and more intense than a star going supernova.

**“I went swimming today.”**

**“How was it?”**

**“I love swimming.”**

**“I know,”** he said, looking at me expectantly.

**“I love swimming,”** I repeated. I swallowed and didn’t say anything for a few seconds.

Then I said,  **“I love swimming--** **_and you_ ** **.”**

He didn’t say anything, but I pushed on. 

**“Swimming and you, Ari. Those are the things I love the most.”**

I wanted him to look up. I wanted his endless brown eyes to find mine and for him to tell me that he loved me, too, the entire time. That he’d fallen in love with me right when he met me. I wanted to smile at him and take his hand and lean in closer to his beautiful face and to--

He looked up the spot on the ground he’d been staring at. I forgot how to breathe as I waited for him to say something. 

**“You shouldn’t say that,”** he said.

My insides emptied out of me into the white wood of the porch.  **“It’s true,”** I heard myself say. 

**“I didn’t say it wasn’t true. I just said you shouldn’t say it.”**

**“Why not?”**

**“Dante, I don’t--”**

**“You don’t have to say anything,”** I interrupted, refusing to cry.  **“I know that we’re different. We’re not the same.”**

**“No, we’re not the same.”**

The look on his face told me everything. He knew just what I was saying. He wanted me to stop saying it, but he knew that I wasn’t someone who could stop saying something like this. But he wasn’t like me. He didn’t love me how I loved him.

**“Do you hate me?”** I burst out. 

His face went soft again, and a wave of relief crashed over me.  **“No. I don’t hate you Dante.”**

We didn’t talk for a few minutes. The dread rose again in my stomach.

**“Will we be friends? When I come back from Chicago?”**

**“Yes.”**

**“Really?”**

**“Yes.”**

**“Do you promise?”**

He looked right at me. His eyes held something more powerful than words could ever be. How could someone’s eyes be stronger than words, the most powerful force I knew? 

**“I promise,”** he said. 

I smiled, even though my heart had rolled all the way to the bottom of Ari’s driveway. I wasn’t going to cry. 

A promise was a promise was a promise. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	35. The End of Summer - Chapter Twelve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crutches, roles, and a goodbye. Filling up to the brim and speaking like the poets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a sad chapter. I realize that this is a sad fic overall, but I cried while writing it and I'm not really a crier.  
> Speaking of people who shed tears in the making of this chapter, SO MANY thanks to [lostintheverse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostintheverse/pseuds/lostintheverse) for betaing, being a fantastic human, and appreciating my weird-ass email subject lines. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Dante leaves for Chicago after an afternoon at Ari's house.

Everything was packed into brown boxes and neatly sealed. Well, not everything, but all the stuff that we’d need for the next nine months. Everything that had made that house a home to me, gone. 

I walked through the house in all of its bareness. It struck me that the way it felt, stripped of all the hominess it had previously held, was how it seemed when I’d first moved in. I’d hated El Paso until Ari. My life had two parts: before I met Ari and after I met Ari. 

At Ari’s house, we settled into our roles. The mothers cooked, the fathers talked about politics or work or something like that, and we sat on the front porch. It seemed to be a pattern, with the porches. 

I wanted to say something really memorable. I wanted to open my mouth and have something like the poems in my books to spill out. My words were never as good as the ones in the books, and that made me want it even more. We weren’t saying much as it was. 

Ari started messing with his crutches, crossing and uncrossing them on his lap. I looked at him. 

**“Your sketch pad is under my bed. Will you go get it for me?”**

_ Oh _ . I didn’t want to see him look. 

I nodded anyway. 

Once in Ari's bedroom, I rustled around under his bed until I found it. This particular sketchbook was pretty much full, and I flicked through the pages mindlessly as I steeled myself to watch him look at them again.  _ Was _ he going to look at them? Was he going to give it back to me?

I settled back next to him, a few inches closer than before, and handed him the pad. 

**“I have a confession to make,”** he said. 

My stomach jumped and my brain (without my permission) started picturing him confessing his love.  **“What?”**

**“I haven’t looked at it.”**

My breathing went back to normal, but my mind raced for a different reason now. What did that mean? Did that mean he didn’t think I was good enough so he didn’t look at all? Did he think I had some kind of obligation to give it to him? What kept him from it? 

**“Can we look at it together?”** he asked quietly. 

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to watch him. 

He opened it. 

He would never know how hard it was for me to watch him look at the result of the one thing I could do to escape the tediousness of my own mind. I could see the thoughts playing across his face. His eyes skated over the pages as he flipped them. He stopped and made circles around a sketch of my face with his thumb. 

**“You look sad in this one.”**

**“Maybe I was sad that day.”**

**“Are you sad now?”**

I didn’t tell him what I wanted to say, as usual. I didn’t ask him if he really needed to ask me that. I didn’t ask him what he meant. I didn’t tell him that I was  _ obviously _ sad, or that all the sadness was filling me up and I didn’t have room for anything more. 

He turned the page to a sketch of him. The next few were of him on the day I’d come to his house to draw him. I looked at Ari’s beautiful face and furrowed eyebrows and watched him trail a finger over the thick pages of the sketch pad. 

**“They’re honest,”** he said finally. 

**“Honest?”**

**“Honest and true. You’re going to be a great artist someday.”**

**“Someday,”** I said softly. **“Listen, you don’t have to keep the sketchbook.”**

His face went all scrunched up like he was confused that I would say that. **“You gave it to me. It’s mine.”**

We ran out of words to say that day. We’d never run out of words before. 

Maybe we didn’t run out of words we had inside of us. Maybe we just ran out of the words we were allowed to say to each other. 

I didn’t let myself say goodbye. It wasn’t a goodbye at all. If I said it, it might feel more real. It might feel like I was actually leaving, and I wasn’t ready to accept that. 

My dad kissed Ari on the cheek. My mom had this weird moment with her hand on his chin and her eyes flashing, telling him something I didn’t know about. I hugged Lilly and Jaime. 

It was my turn to say goodbye to Ari, but I still didn’t let myself. I gathered him in my arms and held him in a tight hug. He hugged me back. 

I pulled away and looked at him, trying to soak in all his beauty one last time before he grew during the nine months.  **“See you in a few months.”**

**“Yeah.”**

**“I’ll write.”**

Ari nodded. He looked like he wanted to tell me something but couldn’t bring himself to say it. 

My parents and I piled into the car. 

“Are you okay?” my dad asked me from the front seat. 

“Yeah.” 

I turned around to look at Ari’s house as far as I could watch it. They were sitting on the porch. 

I didn’t let myself cry until we’d turned onto the next street. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :(
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	36. Letters On a Page - Chapter One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Car rides, bay windows, and possibility. Great loves and (thus far) unsolved mysteries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back, bitches!   
> After a wee research break, we're here with Dante in Chicago, where I actually get to make some Decisions as a writer, so fasten your seat belts. It's gonna be fun, it's gonna be chaotic, and most of all, it's gonna be gay. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari goes to school. Gina and Susie are annoying. He tells the truth about the accident and they don't believe him.

The moving truck drove our things across the country. We drove as well instead of flying, for some unknown reason. 

It was my own personal hell, getting farther and farther away from Ari in a car for days with nothing to do but read and draw and listen to my mother telling my father what to do because he was an awful driver until he pulled over and let her drive instead. 

“You’d probably be reading or drawing or sitting even if we weren’t in the car,” my dad chided from the passenger seat when I complained. 

“Yeah, but at least then I’d have the  _ option  _ of getting up and walking around.” 

I did a lot of thinking on that car ride. I decided that I was going to hate Chicago as completely and entirely as I possibly could, and I was going to make sure my parents knew it. 

That all vanished as soon as we made it into the city. 

Some of the buildings were the tallest I’d ever seen. There were lots and lots of people, walking and driving, on trains and buses, wandering in and out of restaurants and stores and office buildings. 

Everyone was so different, yet so inexplicably the same. 

Business people in suits or professional dresses walked briskly through the streets with their heads held high. Parents and their children meandered, little ones laughing or crying and adults trying and failing to contain them. Couples, arm in arm, made their way around, grinning and making eyes at each other, and I tried not to resent them for it just because I couldn’t do that with the person I loved. 

Chicago was a city for world-changers. Chicago was a city full of people who loved and people who lost and people who laughed and cried and lived so fully and brightly it made my head spin. Chicago was less of a city and more of a  _ being,  _ lights a constant heartbeat and streets the full veins. 

So, despite my most valiant efforts, I now had two great loves: Angel Aristotle Mendoza and Chicago, Illinois.

The apartment the university secured for us in a place called Hyde Park was just the perfect size. We’d be out most of the time anyway, so it didn’t need to be big. We hadn’t brought much, and to my surprise, everything fit perfectly and didn’t seem empty at all. 

My bedroom had a big bay window with a cushioned seat, looking out onto one of the streets with a bit less bustle than the others. I smiled when I first saw it. I already knew I’d sit there for hours. 

With some posters hung up, books and other clutter in place, and my desk set up with supplies for letter-writing, it felt a bit more like my room at home. 

That first night, after a dinner with my parents during which we barely spoke due to exhaustion, I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling, wondering how many ceilings I’d stare at before falling asleep. Had another boy stared at this same ceiling? Did he like boys, too? 

That was another thing about Chicago. I promised myself that I’d figure that out. 

Somehow, surrounded by lights and people, it felt a little less like something that was shaking up the whole world as I knew it. Maybe it wasn’t a secret of the universe. No, not something that big and important. It was only a mystery of myself. 

Mysteries could wait until the morning.

I shut my eyes and dreamed of wandering the city holding the hand of a boy with a crooked smile and big brown eyes, lulled by the sweetness of possibility. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chicago Dante is ready to live his best life but he's also in love with someone over a thousand miles away from him so... we'll see where this goes. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	37. Letters On a Page - Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Midwestern accents, good teachers, and nose rings. City kids and Dante's music taste.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dante's a beautiful pure gay king and he deserves the entire world, you can't change my mind.
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari's new teacher is annoying. Gina is annoying, continued. Ari is convinced He Is Unknowable. Life is complicated.

A few days after we moved in, I started school. 

Starting at Cathedral in El Paso was okay. It wasn’t anything too special, and I didn’t remember most of it. 

Starting school in Chicago was both terrifying and exhilarating. I didn’t have a uniform, so I got up and chose what I wanted to wear, which felt a little bit strange. After breakfast, my parents walked me to the city bus stop. 

“Now, Dante, this isn’t like the bus back in Texas,” my mom said sternly. “People don’t talk to each other as much, if at all. Be careful, and don’t dawdle or you’ll be late. Time doesn’t stop for you, as much as you’d like it to.” 

“I know mom. I’ll be fine.” 

“I know you know.” 

“I’m going now,” I said. 

My dad and mom both kissed me on the cheek, which I guess should’ve been embarrassing. It wasn’t, though. I kissed them back. 

“Bye, mom. Bye, dad.” 

“Bye, Dante. Remember to use proper grammar. I can’t have you ruining my reputation,” my dad said, grinning. 

“Yeah, yeah. Bye.” 

When I got to the school, I noticed right away that it was going to be different. 

In California (which seemed like another life at that point), kids were different than how the kids were in El Paso. They talked differently, they wore different clothes, they had different interests, they ate different foods… But in Chicago, there were the city kids. These teenagers grew up in a city with rules that went unspoken, more so than those from elsewhere. They grew up in the hustle and bustle, and they embraced it. 

Nobody looked the same, of course, but you could tell just by looking at them that they belonged in Chicago. 

I wanted to belong, too. I wasn’t indoctrinated, so I’d have to figure out a way to weasel my way in. 

The first class I had was math, which was probably my least favorite subject. I mean, you had to come up with a concrete answer, and you couldn’t explain why you thought it was something else; somebody a long time ago just decided what the outcome was, and we were expected to agree with them. Agreeing with people from thousands of years ago about what something should be wasn’t my idea of fun. 

The teacher, a nondescript middle-aged woman with a midwestern accent and all the enthusiasm of Ari at a party, let us sit wherever we wanted. I ended up next to a girl with black hair and mostly black clothes who looked like she wanted a nose ring. 

I could work with that. 

She didn’t talk to me, so I needed to say something. All class period, I watched the teacher drone on about the expectations of the year and homework extensions, but I was really trying to think of something clever to say. It was weird, because I hardly ever ran out of clever things to say. I just had them in my brain all the time. But I wanted to be cool, so I tried to think the way a goth sixteen-year-old girl from Chicago would. 

A few minutes before the bell rang, the teacher realized she’d forgotten to take attendance, for some reason. We’d done nothing the entire time. 

Since attendance lists were alphabetized, I’d grown used to waiting until the end to announce my presence. For some reason, attendance made me anxious. I wasn’t usually anxious about social situations, but when I had to say the word “here,” it was like I was afraid I’d be murdered if I did it wrong. I didn’t know why. While teachers intoned names and students gave responses, I always said the word over and over again in my head in case I forgot how to form it when the time came. 

So when the girl beside me said “here” in a voice way sweeter and higher than I’d been expecting based on appearance, I wasn’t listening to her name. 

The teacher said my name, and I said that I was there, the bell rang, and that was the end of that. Everyone rose from their desks in unison and shuffled out the doorway into the narrow halls. 

I didn’t see the girl again that morning. I had English right before lunch, which was, of course, my favorite class so far. The teacher was an eccentric woman with an indecipherable age who had potted herbs by the window and piles of books strewn haphazardly throughout the room. She introduced herself as Ms. Hutchins, and told us that she lived with her childhood best friend in an apartment with three cats. She wore clinky bracelets with her dress, and it seemed like she was the kind of person to wear flowy shawls and talk about moon phases outside of the workplace. 

I liked her immediately. 

Ms. Hutchins had us go around the room and say our names and favorite books instead of calling off names for attendance. 

The really quiet kid next to me, whose name was David, said he didn’t have a favorite book. 

“Why not?” Mrs. Hutchins asked, eyebrows flitting upward. 

“There’s a lot of choices,” he said, even quieter than before. 

“I see.” 

I liked his answer. 

It was my turn, and I was planning on saying  _ 1984 _ because I didn’t have a favorite and my dad loved it. 

“Hi, I’m Dante Quintana,” I said, a little brighter than everyone else’s voice had been. 

I saw some mouths twitch upward, but nobody really acknowledged it. It was like they knew it was a weird name, but they’d heard weirder. 

“Dante?” the teacher repeated.

“Yes.” 

“That’s lovely.” 

“My father’s an English professor.” 

“Wonderful. How about,” she said, whipping a bangled arm upward to point at nothing in particular, “instead of your favorite book, you tell us your favorite poem? Dante Aligieri was a poet, after all.” 

“Oh,” I said, feeling suddenly unprepared. “Well, I read a lot of poems…” 

This time, a few people snickered. Okay, that was fair. 

“Don’t laugh at the one who enjoys art!” Ms. Hutchins admonished. 

“No, it’s fine. I don’t have a favorite poem. It’s like he said.” I paused to tip my head toward David. “There are too many choices.”

Mrs. Hutchins smiled and winked at me (which caught me a little by surprise), then asked the next person. 

I turned slightly, and David was staring at me. I smiled. He didn’t really smile, but he squinted a little and it seemed like he was thinking a smile at me. 

In the cafeteria at lunch, I wandered around for a little bit. It was clear that I was the new kid and I didn’t know where to sit. I craned my neck for some friendly-looking faces. 

My eyes caught on David, who was slouched at the end of a long table filled with goth-looking kids. The girl from my first period was there. 

“Hey,” I said as I approached the group. “Can I sit here? I’m new.” 

They all looked at each other. 

“Sure,” the one closest to me said. 

I took a seat at the middle of the table, by first-period girl. 

“Hi,” I said to her. 

“Hey,” she said back. Her voice still caught me a little off-guard. 

“I think we’re in the same first period, but I don’t remember your name.” 

“Emma.” 

“I’m Dante.” 

She nodded. 

The table engaged in a few conversations, mostly about music. I joined in here and there, although they were talking about a band called The Cure and all I didn't know anything about them.

“You haven’t listened to The Cure?” Emma asked me incredulously. 

“Nope.” 

“What do you listen to, then?” 

“Old stuff. You know, the Beatles, that kind of thing.” 

She pulled a face. “Any rock?” 

“Yeah, a little bit. The older stuff.” 

“Bowie?” 

“Once or twice, I think.” 

“You’ve heard David Bowie  _ once or twice _ ?” a kid from the end of the table asked incredulously. 

“Goth’s kind of your thing, right?” I said. 

“Sure,” Emma said. 

“Well, I really don’t know much about your music or any of that.” 

“There’s a party this Saturday. I’ll give you the address. If you come, you’ll get to hear some real music.” 

Just like that, I was in. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enter my OC's with basic names (I can't name characters for shit, I apologize). We'll see where they take us. I have a plan for this, but I don't always follow my plans (life is too short to ignore inspiration) so it'll be a surprise to all of us!  
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	38. Letters On a Page - Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wondering, a whirlwind, and the mercy of the universe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This contains some fucking top-tier gay yearning. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari starts to write in his journal. He writes that Dante taught him how to swim, then rips out the page.

The first day of school passed by in a whirlwind of new names and faces. By the time the final bell rang and the muted chatter rose to a steady rumble of clomping students in the hallway, I was more tired than I’d been in a long time. 

I made my way to the bus stop and arrived just in time so I wouldn’t have to wait fifteen minutes for the next one. There were some open seats and I didn’t have to stand, which might have been the universe’s way of taking pity on me after throwing me into an entirely new group of people across the country from Ari. 

_ Ari _ . 

All day, I’d thought of him. Every time somebody said something funny, the sound of his laughter echoed through my brain. Every time a teacher had us introduce ourselves, I pictured his sigh of annoyance. When I sat to eat with my new friends (were we friends?), I wondered what Ari would make of them. 

No matter what I did, Ari was the center of my thoughts. He consumed my days. 

I missed him, even though it hadn’t been long since I’d left, refusing to say goodbye. I missed him with every fiber of my being and I wondered if any fibers of him were missing me. I missed him, and I wondered how he felt when I left. 

Was it like losing a limb? Was it like the phantom touch of something that wasn’t ever there? Was it like waking up from a dream so realistic, you couldn’t tell if it was really only a dream? Did Ari miss me like I missed him, like a home I’d never been given permission to make my own? Like the only home to ever really feel like one?

Oh, Ari. 

_ Will you ever realize it all comes back to you? _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Needless to say, he's got it BAD. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	39. Letters On a Page - Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Assumptions, modernism, eternity, and another Quintana writing a book.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapters are getting shorter in an attempt to match the length of their canon counterparts. However, since we don't see Dante in Chicago, they won't get as short as the ones in the book because there's quite a bit of ground to cover. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Asking Lilly about her students.

“How was the first day?”

We were eating pizza ordered from the shop on our street. All three of us seemed tired, but my dad still wanted to talk, of course. Not that I minded too much. I could always talk. 

“It was good.” 

“Good.” 

“And you’re not just saying that?” my mom asked, eyeing me over the slice raised halfway to her lips. 

“No, I’m not just saying that. It was good, really.” 

“You met some friends, I assume?” my dad said. 

“Yeah. Well, I sat with some kids at lunch. No big deal.” I paused to wipe some sauce from my chin with a napkin. “Still don’t know much about them. I met this guy, David, and this girl, Emma. They’re nice.” 

My parents looked at each other. I didn’t speak their eye-signal language, but they seemed to approve. 

“Oh, and my English teacher’s amazing. Ms. Hutchins. She’s cool. She grows lavender in a pot in the window, and she told us there’s a full moon on Monday so she’s going to celebrate with her best friend.”

My parents looked at each other again. This time, they were biting back smiles. 

“How’s work?” I asked. 

“It’s been good for me. My only class is in the mornings, so the rest of the day I can write my book and research for my big lecture.” 

“What’s the lecture about, again?” 

“It’s on poetry after modernism.” 

“Oh,” I said. “Mom? What about you?” 

She thought for a second. “Since I’m not working in the usual sense, I’ve decided to write a book as well.” 

“Really?” 

“That’s great, Soledad,” my dad said brightly. 

“Thank you. It will be about young people who struggle with addiction.”

“Heavy stuff,” I commented. 

“Very heavy stuff. That doesn’t mean it’s not needed.” 

“Certainly not,” my dad agreed. “This is fantastic. I’m so glad you’ve found something to do.” 

“I’m glad, too. And who knows? Maybe I won’t need an editor when I have you around, Sam.” 

“Grammar is important. I have every reason to correct you two,” he defended, setting down his pizza in his indignance. “I’m very passionate about the English language.” 

“Oh, we know.” 

We laughed. 

For a moment, I could see us living in Chicago forever. That apartment, filling with the warmth of a home. That table, becoming the one where all the big talks happened. That city, with us in it. 

Even in that singular moment, I saw him. 

Chicago couldn’t be my forever. Ari was my forever. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, yes, the Very Cheesy Last Line, for which I am not at all sorry. Somebody give this boy a hug. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	40. Letter On a Page - Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Routine, essays, and finding your crowd.  
> Always.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is kind of dry, for which I profusely apologize. There were a few things I needed to get through that didn't need too much content but did need to be fit in, so I put them here. The next chapter will be juicier, I promise!! 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ileana signs Ari's cast.

The second day of school was miraculously easier than the first. 

Not that the first day had been excruciating, but knowing people in a few of my classes saved me quite a bit of worrying. 

Emma sat next to me during first period. While the World’s Most Boring Teacher was saying something particularly dry, she passed me a small slip of paper torn from the corner of a notebook page with a phone number on it in black ink. I smiled and started taking notes again. 

In English, Ms. Hutchins set in on our first essay of the year, which was meant to warm us up for what was to come. It wasn’t really an essay; we were to write about the best book we’d read that summer and why we liked it. I settled on  _ The Sun Also Rises _ . It reminded me of reading it to Ari. Ari, who was always on my mind. 

David sat next to me in English. He wasn’t much of a talker, but he seemed to listen when I talked, so I told him about moving from California to El Paso and then from El Paso to Chicago when we had some time before the end of the period. I mentioned Ari and the accident in passing, careful not to go on and on about it. I didn’t know if people ever suspected that a boy liked another boy, but I didn’t want to make anything obvious. David ended up telling me that he’d lived in Chicago his whole life. Like I said, not a huge talker. He mostly nodded along and smiled at me with his eyes. He had nice eyes. They were blue, and they crinkled, just a little bit, at the corners when he smiled with them.

At lunch, I sat with the big group again. They talked about something Emma’d heard about the teachers going on strike. Everyone seemed to be in agreement that the teachers deserved a better salary and conditions, and they were right to ask for those things in every way possible. We didn’t know much about it, but we were still emphatic about everyone being treated fairly. 

I knew I’d found my crowd. 

When school was over and I’d ridden the bus home, ready to plop down on the couch and lay there for at least an hour before starting my homework, my mom was waiting for me. 

“There’s an indoor swimming pool on our block.” 

“Really?”

“Yes, really. You can walk down there after school whenever you’d like.”

I did go to the swimming pool, everyday when school let out. There were fewer lifeguards there than there had been in El Paso, probably because it was an enclosed space and there weren’t as many people. They were nicer, too. 

When I got home after the first day of swimming, my mom sat next to me on the couch as I started my homework for the day. She smiled at me. Her fingers brushed my face as she tucked a lock of my dark, chlorine-soaked hair behind my ear. 

“It’s getting long,” she said. 

“Yeah, it is.” 

“Do you want it cut?” 

“Sure.” 

“Let’s go now. Your father’s coming home soon.” 

We went. It was shorter than I’d ever had it before. 

“It looks good, Dante. It suits you,” my dad commented when he got home from his meeting. 

“Thanks.” 

“A little like Ari’s,” my mom said absentmindedly. 

I didn’t say anything. She was right. 

Everyday from then on, I went to the pool and swam for an hour after school. When I was finished and my body felt wrung out and weary, I walked home. I did homework at the desk in my room. I called Emma sometimes. 

And I thought about Ari. 

I always thought about Ari. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all! Thank you so much to everyone who's reading. This is a crazy thing, I know, and I hope it comes together and satisfies at least some of your wishes for a Dante POV, although nobody can do it like BAS. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	41. Letters On a Page - Chapter Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Normalcy, exploring, and distracting yourself. Problematic public transportation and strange emotions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge thank you to [lostintheverse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostintheverse/pseuds/lostintheverse)! It's literally impossible to thank you enough. No matter how many times I say it, it won't even begin to express my profound gratitude for everything you say and do. But I'll still try. So thank you, again and again and again, for betaing and being who you are. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari gets his truck. He misses Dante and then, for some reason, thinks of Ileana.

After the first week of school had ended, I decided to explore the city. 

Not the whole city, just the part that was easily accessible. I went swimming, showered, did my homework, and told my parents I was going out for a bit. 

“Stay close,” my dad said. 

“Be home by ten,” my mom warned. “Not a minute later.” 

“I’m sixteen, mom. Ten o’clock is practically mid-afternoon.” 

“Would you like to argue with me about this?” 

“Bye,” I said. I shut the door behind me, and out into the world I went. 

The El train was the best way to get around. I’d been on it with my parents right after we moved in. The El was a normal-sized train, and there wasn’t anything extraordinary about it. That was what made it so special. If it were extravagant, it’d lose its charm after awhile. But it was so  _ normal _ , such a part of peoples’ lives in Chicago. So standard, to take the El where you needed to go. The gum stamped into the floor and the softness of the fabric seats where thousands of people had sat were reminders that life went on, inside and outside the train, even though it felt like you were in a bubble outside the realm of humanity. 

I didn’t go far, heeding my dad’s warning because I didn’t see a reason to do otherwise. 

The El screeched to a halt just a few minutes after I got on, and I hopped off right away. It would be all the quicker to get back in time for sunset and avoid being strangled by my mother in case I lost track of time. 

I wandered the streets, stopping to stare into a few windows and once at a street vendor for an ice cream cone I licked at frantically to keep it from melting on my hands. A small book store had its door propped open, so I went in and purchased a book about the history of Chicago. The lights in the streets and on the buildings were on and visible now, even though it wasn’t dark yet. 

On the back of the crumpled paper Emma had used to give me her phone number, I scribbled the names of a few shops I wanted to visit. Christmas shopping, birthday presents, art supplies, just for fun… 

After an hour or so, I got back on the El train and headed home. I’d get home a few minutes before ten, but I wasn’t willing to push the rules after such a long week. 

The only problem was, the El was going significantly slower than it usually would have. 

“Excuse me,” I said politely, tamping down the rising anxiety and tapping the shoulder of the woman sitting across from my row. “Do you know what the issue is?” 

“I know as much as you do.” 

“Right, sorry.” 

Soon, a flat voice came out of the speaker directly above me. 

“There will be a delay due to an accident on the tracks.” 

That was all. 

I read the book I’d bought, trying desperately to get lost in wondering about the Great Fire in 1871, my leg bouncing at a truly impressive speed. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I shut the book and my eyes and tipped my head back to look at the ceiling. My lungs felt pinched and shaky, so I forced out some deep breaths like my mom would tell me to do. 

_ What will Mom say?  _

No, I couldn’t think about that. This wasn’t my fault. I couldn’t do anything about it. 

I opened the book again and started up where I’d left off, making sure to regulate my breathing this time. 

The people around me were getting restless, too. Grumblings and soft moans of irritation churned together in the air around me and clouded the train car like smoke. 

Finally, after what felt like several centuries but was actually an hour and fifteen minutes, the train started moving again. 

When it stopped where I wanted to get off, I jumped down from the platform and started running home.

The soft click of the door to the apartment shutting behind me rang out like a gunshot and seemed to resound through every room in our small space. On the couch, facing the door, both of my parents sat staring at me. 

I didn’t say anything at first. 

“Where were you?” my dad asked, voice cracking on the last word. The fear and disappointment in his eyes broke me open. 

“There was an accident on the tracks of the El. We were delayed over an hour. I didn’t even go far, just one stop. I left with more than enough time left. I couldn’t do anything about it, I’m so sorry,” I rambled and tripped over my words, eyes brimming with tears. 

My mom got up and walked over to me until she was right there, less than a foot away. She reached out and put one hand on each of my shoulders. Her dark brown eyes met mine and reached all the way, deep inside me, to my soul. 

“I’m sorry,” I whimpered. 

“We thought you were hurt, or kidnapped, or worse,” she said softly. “We were very frightened. I understand that you didn’t mean for this to happen. However, I’m going to have to make a rule. From now on, you may not ride the El train alone at night.” 

Suddenly, I stopped crying. My emotions flipped in an instant and I went into debate mode. “That’s not fair. It wasn’t my fault, you said it yourself.” 

“I know that.” 

“So what’s this?” I asked, voice involuntarily rising in both pitch and volume. “It was a fluke thing. There’s no reason to believe it’s going to happen again. Besides, why are you taking this out on me?” 

“It’s for your safety, Dante. In the city, it’s not safe to be out alone past dark anyway, on a train or not,” my dad said. 

It was about the accident. That was it, I was sure of it. It all made sense. 

“You can’t use the accident as a justification for your unreasonable policies.” 

“This isn’t about that.” 

**“Dad, a car can’t run over my ass on an El train.”**

He fixed me with a look that I’d never seen before. Serious, definitely, and it seemed like he was conflicted and sure and thinking about the accident and thinking about Chicago and disappointed and relieved to see me and more than that, all at once. I heard my mother’s breath catch next to me. 

I wouldn’t speak until he did. 

**“No riding the El train at night,”** he said, low and dead serious.

As I sat in my bay window, staring out at the lights of the shops on the other side of the street, I wondered what Ari’s parents were like after the accident. 

I wondered what Ari was like in the wake of the accident when I wasn’t around. 

There was a knock at my door. My dad let himself in and sat on my bed. 

“I need you to understand something,” he said quietly. 

I didn’t respond. 

“When you were gone, your mother and I watched the news. There was a mugging at the station, and the woman was hurt badly because she tried to resist. That woman’s in the hospital right now.” 

“Oh.” 

“Your mother started crying. She didn’t know what to do. She kept saying that it could’ve been you, just like after the accident,” he said, getting somehow even quieter as he went. “I know it wasn’t your fault. We know that, son. Maybe it doesn’t seem fair to you, but what happened that day in the rain changed something. I don’t know what it changed, but something happened inside us all.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Yeah. You already know this, but if Ari wasn’t there that day, you would’ve died,” he whispered. “Our son. We have to live knowing that you almost died. We almost lost you.” 

The silence swallowed us. My dad never made any noise when he cried. 

“I’m so sorry if it seems like there are a lot of rules, or that they don’t make sense. The truth is, nothing about this summer makes sense to us right now. Maybe it will, some day, but it just… We don’t know what to do with all this pain, Dante. So we try to protect you.” 

“You’re protecting me from a non-existent threat.” 

“I just told you about the mugging.” 

“It’s not the same.” 

“No, it’s not,” he agreed. “But if your mother feels like you not riding the El at night is going to keep you safe, I’d like it if you would let her have that.” 

They were just trying to protect me. That’s all they wanted. 

I fell asleep in the bay window, wondering about what it felt like to try shielding someone from the worst things life had to offer. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *blows a kiss* for the Quintanas  
> Leave it to me to take a few sentences from one of the letters and turn it into an entire angsty chapter.
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	42. Letters On a Page - Chapter Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mint, pretending, and broken promises. Laughing at the world and the world laughing right back at you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's time for the parties!!
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari talks to his mom about the truck and his dream.

The night after the incident on the train, there was the party. I couldn’t ride the El, so I walked. Luckily for me, it wasn’t too far. 

It was at a house several blocks away from our apartment in Hyde Park. Somebody’s parents were gone for the weekend, so we could break as many rules as we wanted. We could pretend there were no rules.

Before I left, my mom interrogated me. 

“Will there be drinking?” 

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.” 

“Will there be drugs?” 

“I really don’t think so.” 

“Will there be smoking?” 

“Again, not sure, but doubtful.” 

“If any of that happens will you participate?” 

“Of course not.” 

“Say it.” 

“Say what?” 

“Promise me,” she said, stepping closer and meeting my eyes forcefully, “that you won’t do any of that.” 

“I promise that I will not drink, do drugs, or smoke at this party or any party in the future.” 

I promptly broke my promise. 

The moment I got there, my friends all pulled me right to a table with a truly impressive spread of alcohol (which I was a tad wary of, since I didn’t know where it had been procured from and who had done the procuring). I’d thought the drinking wouldn’t start for a bit, but I guess I’d been wrong. 

“Have you ever had a drink before, Dante?” one of the guys said, leaning close to my face. 

“Nope. My mom’s a psychologist. She’s writing a book about addiction in teenagers. She’ll know if I come home drunk.”

He laughed. His breath smelled rancid already. I laughed back. 

“You only live once,” he said, then strode away with the rest of the group holding a cup of something I hadn’t seen him pour. 

I stared at the choices, then grabbed a beer bottle. There was an opener on the counter, so I pried the cap off and left it there. 

The rest of the night was, quite honestly, a blur. Two more beers followed the first one in rapid succession, and I’d never had anything before, so I ended up on my knees, heaving into a toilet. I decided that beer was not for me as I felt the foul-tasting bile make its way past my lips. 

When I stumbled out of the bathroom, I searched for a glass of water, found it, then promptly sat in the corner and listened to the loudest music I’d ever heard pounding through my head. I’d only had three. Was three a lot? I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything about beer. 

A sticky-sweet smell wafted through the room. A few kids with joints dangling between their lips plopped down on the floor beside me. 

I must’ve been staring, because one of the girls giggled at me. “Want to try it?” 

“Uh…”

I thought of my mom. I thought of my dad. I thought of my counselor back in El Paso. I thought of every teacher I’d ever had. For some reason, I thought of Ari’s parents. All the people who would tell me not to do it. 

Then I remembered I’d already had three beers and I was at a party and I was in Chicago and I was sixteen and this was  _ life _ , so all the disappointing looks I’d been imagining were chased from my mind and out the window that’d been cracked to let out some of the smoke. 

“Sure.” 

She handed it to me. I brought it to my lips and took a shallow drag. I’d seen people cough on big ones. I still felt like coughing. Instead, I cleared my throat and took another. And another. I passed it back to the girl. She took two and handed it back to me. I took two and gave it to her, then shook my head the next time she offered it to me. 

Suddenly, the room was a little hazy and I was feeling giggly. The girl who’d offered me the joint started laughing and pointing at something across the room, and I started laughing without even looking. We laughed and laughed and laughed at the whole entire world, and the world laughed right back at us. 

I went home that night, a few hours later and feeling sober enough to sneak past my mom. She gave me a look of skepticism, but I’d had enough water and a revolting mug of coffee, so everything from the previous hours felt like ancient history and I was steady on my feet, although my head hurt.

**“You smell like smoke,”** she accused. 

**“Some people smoke. Can’t help that.”**

She glared at me from the sides of her eyes. I walked away.

Somehow, there was another one the next Friday. Why did parents leave their teenagers alone with empty houses and large budgets? I didn’t know, but I went anyway. 

There was drinking right away. Beer wasn’t for me, but I took one anyway so I had something to hold. I sipped it, but not a lot. 

That party had more people. So many people, I could hardly turn around without bumping into someone. 

That night was a blur, too. A blur, except for one part. 

I made sure to remember the next thing that happened very carefully:

I was standing in the kitchen with Emma. We talked about something. The teachers and their walkout next month, or music, or Reagan, or something. Something that I didn’t need to remember. Her voice, even after the past few weeks, still took me by surprise at first. It was high and clear and sweet. 

I thought that she was pretty. She had jet black hair that came down to her shoulders. She was wearing dark jeans and a leather jacket more expensive than some peoples’ rent. The makeup smudged around her eyelids was also black. Everything was black. She had a tiny hoop through the side of her nose, and she took it off and showed me that it wasn’t real, just a clip. Her mom wouldn’t let her get a real one.

Then she said, “I like your name. It’s so cool. Like you. It’s cool, you’re cool, and I like you.”

I stood there for a second. I didn’t know what was going on. 

Then, she leaned in close to my face. I blinked hard. And she kissed me. 

I’d never been kissed before. Her lips were warm and she tasted like cigarettes and mint. My lips slid against hers, and it was, objectively, pleasant. 

She pulled away and took my face in her hands. I smiled at her. She told me that I was beautiful. I told her that she was beautiful, too. I told her that she had pretty eyes. She kissed me again. 

We shared a cigarette. We stood there, in someone else’s kitchen, kissing and kissing. 

We went outside. She smoked another cigarette. 

“Want one?” 

“Can’t. I’m a swimmer, remember?” 

That night, lying in bed and staring at the ceiling, I was careful to remember it just like that. 

I was careful not to remember how I thought that kissing a girl felt like I was acting in a play, or something. Not to remember that the whole time, I wanted it to be with someone else. 

I was careful not to remember that I pictured Ari’s hands on my face, smooth skin gliding gently. Not to remember that I imagined my fingers in his hair. Not to remember that I wanted to share his breath, live on the pull and slide of his lips on mine and the tingling exhales in between. Not to remember that I thought Ari would taste like something different and I wanted to survive on his taste, even if I didn’t know what it was. 

I had to be careful about how I remembered the kiss, or it would seem like I wasn’t happy about it. I couldn’t not be happy about it.

There were lots of things I couldn’t do. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, Dante! No!!
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	43. Letters On a Page - Chapter Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Simplicity, truth, and pain. Pen-tapping and baffled teachers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dante's really gay, in case you hadn't noticed.
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari gets two letters from Dante in the same day. He reads them both.

When my parents were getting ready for bed the Monday night after the kiss, they forgot that I could hear them (again). 

“I got the job offer. Permanent position at the university,” my dad said.

“Oh. That’s great,” my mom said. 

“It is great.” 

“Do you want to take it?” 

“I don’t know. It doesn’t feel right.” 

“No, it doesn’t feel right. It’s not fair to Dante.” 

“It’s not fair, and **it’s not a good place for him** .”

“Right.” 

“Is it really that simple? Do you want to stay?” 

“It’s really that simple.”

“I’ll turn it down tomorrow morning.”

They were making life choices around me. Me, a boy who liked boys and who wanted to kiss boys and do other things with boys that anybody halfway decent definitely didn’t think about. Me, who couldn’t even be a boy right. 

I was going to let them down. They’d realize what a mistake they were making, planning around me. I wasn’t a good reason to make choices. I wasn’t worth their sacrifices. 

Before I could spiral, I slumped down at my desk with my cheek resting on my arm. I pulled out a few pieces of paper. I uncapped the pen and tapped it on the top of my head. 

What would Ari want to know? Would he want to know anything? No, I promised him I would write, so I had to write. He hadn’t said he would write, but I had. 

I wrote him a letter about Chicago. The El train, my parents, parties with beer and pot. That beer wasn’t my thing and I decided as I was writing that I’d be a wine-drinker as an adult. About my parents saying my dad wasn’t taking the permanent position so we could go home. 

**_The truth is, Ari,_ ** I wrote,  **_I miss El Paso. When we first moved there, I hated it. But now I think about El Paso all the time._ **

**_And I think of you._ **

**_Always,_ **

**_Dante_ **

My loopy handwriting (which was somehow both atrociously messy and perfectly neat in a way that had baffled teachers since I was small) filled the page and swam before me. I couldn’t end the letter like that. 

As I scratched a postscript about swimming and my haircut, I wondered how often people wrote to each other. I didn’t know. I’d never lived across the country from my best friend before. 

I sealed the first letter into an envelope and started on another right away. I had enough to think about without worrying about how many letters were too many. Life was short, right? Ari would read them anyway, right? 

I found myself writing about the party where the kiss happened. It started normal, with my parents and rich city kids. 

Drawing in a deep breath and holding it, I scribbled out how the kiss had happened. My stomach kind of churned, but it was fine. 

I was fine. It was  _ fine _ .

When I finished, I let out the breath and read over what I’d written. It wasn’t like it could get much better. 

At the bottom, I added,  **_I’m not sure about all this._ **

_ Love,  _

_ Dante.  _

“Oh, fuck,” I mumbled. ‘Love, Dante?’ What was that? 

It was true, of course. Obviously. It was all I thought about. I loved him, and he wouldn’t love me the way I loved him, and it would be  _ fine _ , all just perfectly okay because it needed to be. 

Could I send the letter? What would he think, when he read it? It was only one word. Not like it was a big deal. For years, people had obsessed over how to end a letter when they loved someone. I was an open person. He knew that. He would understand. 

...but then, maybe Ari wasn’t okay with boys who liked boys. I didn’t know what he thought about people like me. Were there other people like me? There had to be more… 

I shook my head back and forth like that would clear the distractions. 

I took out another piece of paper and copied the letter, word for word, until the end. I exchanged the full truth for an easier one. 

_ Your friend. _

No, it wasn’t an easier truth. Just a more painful one to hide behind. 

I was learning that pain was necessary to exist in a world that wasn’t designed for people like me. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wish I could give Dante an older gay mentor. Like, have his lesbian teacher that I made up invite him to her apartment with her wife and like,,, teach him about being gay? But alas, here we are. Mentor-less and sad. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	44. Letters On a Page - Chapter Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wandering, stories, and tourist-traps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know fuck all about art, so here's a chapter about the art museum wherein Dante doesn't talk about specific art. Whoops. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Imagining Dante based on his letters. Some thoughts about Bernardo. Thinking about dreams.

One afternoon, I was wandering the streets. I was in my own head too much, and I couldn’t stand to just sit around thinking about what a disappointment I was. I mean, it was terrible. So I went out. 

I went by this tourist-trap. I don’t remember what it was. There was a shelf outside, filled with leaflets and advertisements for stuff to do in the city. I slowed down and gazed at the shelf. 

The Art Institute of Chicago. 

The small pamphlet had an address on it. I took the El down to the Art Institute. 

When I got there, I stood in its long shadow, staring up at the massive building before me. Awe-inspiring. The stone was heavy and solid, and there were lots of windows. There was this lion statue, its metal worn green from the years and rain and whatever else happened since it was put there. 

This was the place where art really lived. 

Not quite, actually. Art lived inside of us. But if there was a physical location, this would be it. 

The halls of the museum were filled with stories. 

Paintings and sculptures. They all held something. With some of them, I saw what they held right away. For some, it took a little longer. 

I thought of how I felt when I was drawing. I thought that each person who had made these beautiful things had felt something so different, so unique. 

Maybe it was a secret of the universe that feelings were different but also the same. That  _ people _ were different, but also the same. 

Maybe it was artists who held the secrets of the universe. They all knew a fragment of the collection of secrets, and it came pouring out of them in the form of something we could see and feel and touch. Together, in a place like the Institute, with all of it in one place… it was a collection of little bits and pieces that seemed to fit together just enough to create something resembling art. 

Art was truth. Art was life. Art was love and light and darkness and feelings and growth and mysteries. 

We were all artists, I thought, in different ways. 

I realized, as I wandered the halls of an old building filled with pieces of the world, that art held me together. Without it, I’d dissolve into thin air. I’d be nothing disguised as everything disguised as nothing. 

Disguises. Hiding. 

I didn’t want to do that so much. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!! 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	45. Letters On a Page - Chapter Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Librarians, more tears, and falling into place. It's not that hard to imagine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari wants to find a way to kiss Ileana.

_ I can’t be the only boy who likes boys, right? _

That was the thought that played through my head at night when I was trying to fall asleep. Between that and Ari and El Paso, I didn’t have room for anything else in my brain. 

I decided to put myself out of my misery and go to the library. I didn’t know if they’d have books about it. I didn’t know if people even wrote books about it. 

I found the word “gay” in a book about sexuality. I felt stupid, because I’d heard it before and never put two and two together. It was a word tossed around in locker rooms; a petty insult boys used to make each other laugh or to make someone else upset. It hadn’t even occurred to me that people were actually gay. 

Or that I was gay. But I was. 

Dante Quintana, gay. 

Not that hard to imagine. 

I took the book and a few other ones around it to the checkout. The librarian didn’t seem to find it strange. I’m sure she’d seen weirder anyway. 

When I got home, I sat down on my bed and pulled the blanket up to cover what I was reading, even though the covers weren’t particularly incriminating.

I skimmed through the books. It turned out that there had been gay people out there, living in the world, since the beginning of humanity. Boys who liked boys, girls who liked girls. Gay people couldn’t get married or adopt kids, and they didn’t have that many rights. In some countries, you were killed for being gay. 

There were people out there, just like me. Everywhere. 

I didn’t remember starting to cry, but all of a sudden, I was. Because I wasn’t alone. I wasn’t a freak, and I wasn’t broken. I was just gay, and gay people were people, too. 

A whole community of people. There was also a thing where you liked both girls  _ and _ boys. There were people who weren’t necessarily gay, but they were given the wrong gender when they were born. Some people didn’t have a gender at all. Not the same, but we were both different from who other people said we were supposed to be. 

What if I knew other people like this without having any idea? The books didn’t say how many people were gay or something else that was different from normal. I was lucky to have even found the book at all. Could Ari be gay? Could Ari like boys? Could Ari like  _ me _ ?

There was a knock at the door. “Dante?” 

“Uh, one second,” I said, trying to keep the panic out of my voice as I frantically marked my page and shoved the books under my bed and out of sight. “Sorry, you can come in now.” 

My dad opened the door, looking highly amused. “What’s going on in here? Are you hiding something?” 

“No, I was just… changing my clothes.”

He nodded slowly, suspicious. 

“What did you need?” I asked as lightly as possible. 

“Oh, yeah. What do you want for dinner?” 

After that scare, I was much more careful. I hid the pile under my bed, and I read under my blanket with a flashlight until I fell asleep. Nothing during the daytime. The library didn’t have anything more about the topic, but that was okay with me. 

The word “gay” still kind of scared me. I’d used it a lot in my head, that first day. But really, it still felt like an insult from a mean boy in a locker room. It hurt a little bit to say out loud.

“I like boys,” I whispered into my pillow. Words felt different when you put them out into the world, even when you’d thought them a hundred times. “I want to marry a boy. I want to kiss a boy and marry a boy, because I like boys.” 

I cried again. 

The world still wasn’t made for people like me. But at least I knew that there were people like me. 

I wasn’t alone, no matter how much it felt like it sometimes. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was no way I could resist this chapter! I had to do it! He had to Learn Things!!
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	46. Letters On a Page - Chapter Eleven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Repetition, simplicity, and moonbeams. Staring at the ceiling and beautiful boys.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It really hurts to write something that hurts Dante. As sad as this book gets... It just hurts because he's sweet and pure and beautiful and I love him too much. Can he have, like, a happy scene?? Please??
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Lilly suggests that Ari should write back to Dante. Ari doesn't like that.

I fell into a deep sleep. It was like I was catching up for the nights I had stared at the ceiling and rolled out of bed in the morning with bloodshot eyes and no clue if I had ever drifted off. The thing that had literally kept me awake at night wasn’t as bad when I knew I wasn’t alone. 

I wasn’t alone. I’d tell myself that hundreds of times a day, repeating it like a mantra. I’d inhale those words and let them overtake me, a rising ocean of contentment I couldn’t get enough of. Forget beer; I was drunk on the simplicity of the way I could breathe. 

There was more to worry about later. For the moment, I just let myself be. 

The blackness of easy sleep drifted into a dream. 

_ I was sitting on the front porch in El Paso. The sun was in the sky, and it was hot. Hot, hot. There was someone facing me. We were laughing.  _

_ I reached out and took his hand. He smiled at me.  _

_ The sun continued to beat down on us.  _

_ “It’s hot,” he said breathily.  _

_ “So hot,” I agreed.  _

_ We fanned ourselves with the hands that weren’t occupied by each others’.  _

_ “I love you,” I said. My heart was beating fast. I hadn’t said that to him before. _

_ He didn’t say anything for a second. Just furrowed his eyebrows. “It’s so hot.” _

_ “...are you okay?”  _

_ His face went soft. Not the expression. It actually went soft. He started melting onto the porch.  _

_ “I’m sorry,” he said. His voice was getting watery, like the rest of him.  _

_ “Don’t be sorry,” I said. “I love you.”  _

_ He didn’t say anything. He had leaked through the slats between the boards of the porch and into the ground below me. I was alone.  _

_ Suddenly, it was cold.  _

I sat up in bed. The moonbeams, intermixed with the ever-present lights of the city, streamed in from my bay window. It was quiet, except for a soft siren in the distance, like usual. 

I wanted to ask my mom. She would know about dreams, wouldn’t she? A psychologist had to know more than I would. 

But if I asked her, she’d know. She’d know things about me that I wasn’t ready to tell anyone. 

Instead of waking her up like a child would, like I wanted to, I eased down onto my back and stared at the ceiling again. 

I could deal with beautiful melting boys on my own. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	47. Letters On a Page - Chapter Twelve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obsessing, returns, and wanting something. Ari knows and you can't control other people, Dante.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari thinks about the dream he had about his brother. He wants to find out more about his brother and thinks that Dante would know what to do. But "I don't need Dante. I can do this on my own."

I didn’t get any letters from Ari. 

When I came back from swimming at the end of each school day, I didn’t have a letter waiting. When I came back from parties on the weekends, I didn’t have a letter waiting. When I came back from the art museum, I didn’t have a letter waiting. 

You get the picture. No letters from Ari. 

It sort of made sense. I mean, Ari was a pretty reserved guy. He wasn’t talkative like me, and when he did talk, it wasn’t about his feelings or really deep stuff unless I brought it up. Everything was kept bottled up inside of him. 

I wasn’t like that. I would say what I needed to say when I needed to say it, even when it was hard or people didn’t want to hear it. 

But Ari didn’t write me any letters, even though I knew that he knew I missed him. How couldn’t he know? How couldn’t he see that my life without him wasn’t much of anything? 

He had to know. He just wasn’t recognizing it the way I wanted him to. 

_ You can’t control other people, Dante,  _ a voice in my head tutted. It sounded suspiciously like my mom. 

Of course I couldn’t control other people. I was allowed to want something from them, though. I was allowed to desire things that were out of reach. That was how life worked in every arena. 

Ari wasn’t writing to me, even though he knew I wanted him to. Either he didn’t want to be my friend (which would kill me), he didn’t know what to say (which was okay), he somehow knew I liked boys and didn’t want to associate with me (which was both impossible and heartbreaking)... 

Or, there was something else going on that was keeping him from writing to me, which I couldn’t begin to guess at unless I got a letter. And I wouldn’t get a letter if there was something going on that was keeping him from writing to me. 

It was all very frustrating. I tried not to think about it. 

Trying not to think about something just made you think about it harder. How was that even fair?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blegh. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	48. Letters On a Page - Chapter Thirteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Late-night letters, no filter, and sleep deprivation. Unknowing and sealed envelopes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I kinda went MIA for a few days. But consider: I was writing something else that's completely unrelated to this. Oops! In any case, I'm back and I have lots of Inspiration and Momentum so this will (hopefully, please God) be finished within the next month.
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari gets a letter from Dante.

One night, when I couldn’t sleep, I dragged myself out of bed and decided to write a letter. 

As much time as I typically spent lying awake, I loved sleeping. I would fall asleep really late, when I couldn’t even be bothered to know what time it was, and I’d refuse to wake up until exactly a half hour before I had to be at the bus stop. 

So, I was a little delirious and it was an ungodly hour. I pulled out my paper and blinked at it until my vision stopped being so blurry. 

Everything spilled out. 

Not getting any letters back and how I thought about that too much. Not wanting to bother him about not getting letters back, but still being anxious about it. 

The Art Institute. Andy Warhol,  _ The Raft of the Medusa _ , Edward Hopper. Edward Hopper and his sad paintings that made me even sadder than I already was and reminded me of Ari, who was the saddest person I knew for reasons I didn’t think even he knew. 

His casts coming off. I wasn’t allowed to talk about it, but I did anyway. Adding the weeks up in my foggy brain and deciding they were off already. 

Missing him. Missing him so much. 

Were there rules about telling him I missed him? I didn’t know, and I didn’t have a filter at that point, so I asked him. I hated the rules. I said so. 

_ Maybe we should do something about rules. _ Yeah. 

As I signed it and sealed the envelope, I wanted to not know. I wanted, more than anything, to not know why he wasn’t writing to me. To not know why he was avoiding me and he didn’t want me to tell him that I loved him. I wanted to not know what was going on. 

But I knew. I knew that he knew that I was gay and I loved him. I knew that he didn’t love me how I loved him, and never would. 

I wanted to not know. I wanted to be oblivious and naive and have hope. I wasn’t even allowed to have hope, because hoping that he loved me was hoping he was different like I was, and I wasn’t a good kind of different. I was the kind of different that entire religions spat on and the kind of different that got you beat up in alleyways and assaulted in locker rooms. 

I wanted to forget that I ever loved him in the first place, as much as it hurt to think that. I wanted to not know just how much it hurt when I remembered how far away he was. To not know how much I missed him. To not know the fantasies that played through my head when I closed my eyes but couldn’t sleep, not know how much I ached to touch him, hold him. 

Ignorance is bliss, right?

But you couldn’t unknow anything, unfeel anything. I couldn’t unknow what was pressed into my heart. When something was real, it didn’t go away just because it would be easier that way.

And loving Ari was the realest thing I knew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ari's dramatic and capital-s Sad, and all "I Am Unknowable" but Dante's. Just. He's like. He's Dante and he's anxious and he wants with all his sweet, sweet gay heart for Ari to love him back and it HURTS me to see him like this. Well, write, not see. Same difference. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	49. Letters On a Page - Chapter Fourteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gross, ugliness, and lessons. Without warning and bad teen movies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think Emma must've been a nice gal. I'm just not her biggest fan because Dante isn't meant to kiss her, or anyone but Ari. Emma must've been great, though. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari gets the location of Ileana's locker from Susie, who spills to Gina. The girls inform him that Ileana's a woman and Ari's just a boy. Nevertheless, he puts a note in the locker, featuring the word "hi" and his signature.

The one thing that never changed in a city full of motion was the parties. 

Every Friday and Saturday, someone’s parents would be out of town. I didn’t know how that happened. It was like a bad teen movie, how everything just worked out so the kids could drink unsupervised and have sex in the bedrooms of a stranger’s house. 

Someone would invite my friends, and then my friends would invite me. Or someone would invite me, and then I would invite my friends. When everyone who went was a rich city kid, it didn’t seem to matter who went. Again, like a bad teen movie. 

This one party I went to was pretty empty compared to what I was normally used to, which was to say that it was a decent number of bodies to be in one house and we could actually breathe without knocking into someone else. Crazy, I know. I was hanging out in the kitchen, getting some vodka and orange juice (I’d tried beer a few more times, and it just wasn’t for me). Emma came in, looking for a lighter she’d apparently left there earlier. 

“Hi, Emma,” I said. 

“Hey.” 

And then she kissed me. Just like that, without any warning. 

Now, I knew that I would rather be kissing a boy (Ari), but I didn’t pull away. That seemed kind of rude, and it was also fine. It wasn’t harming anything. She wasn’t asking me to be her boyfriend. There weren’t any strings attached. 

Plus, you learn to kiss by kissing someone. A fact of life. So if I wanted my first real kiss, with a boy, to be good, I’d have to shut up and take the free lessons. 

She liked to mess up my hair with her fingers when she kissed me. That was okay, because I never brushed it anyway. I just put my hands on her shoulders, which might have been awkward if she seemed to care. She didn’t. 

Emma and I kissed a lot at all the parties, for a long time. 

It almost seemed wrong, because I knew I liked boys. But people could like boys and girls, right? So maybe, if I tried hard enough, I could love her. I could love her, and then we would have a reason to stay in this city. Then we’d get married as high school sweethearts and people would coo at us because it was adorable, and then we’d have kids and my parents would be happy. 

Even as I thought it, I knew it was the furthest from my truth that I could get. 

Living my life and being as true to myself as I could be used to just be second-nature. It only got harder as the truth got uglier. 

Was the truth ugly? Was it really gross that I liked boys? If lots of other boys did, too, then why was it so hard?

Too many questions that didn’t have answers. Too many questions whose answers were secrets of the universe that the universe did a frustratingly good job of hiding. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eww, Dante's kissing a girl. It feels wrong. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	50. Letters On a Page - Chapter Fifteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Repetition, growing up, and heaviness. Using your intuition and thousands of miles of separation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, Dante. He's being Sad. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Looks for records of Bernardo's arrest at the library. Instead of writing to Dante, he finds a book about Edward Hopper's 'Nighthawks'.

Wondering took up most of my time. 

Not that it didn’t always, but it was especially overwhelming now. I had things to wonder about that most people didn’t, and I had things to wonder about that were the most important things I’d ever face. 

There was no way for me to find a home for those thoughts. I couldn’t compartmentalize everything and stuff it all away for later. All I could do was think (and think, and think, and think, and think). 

Life became a combination of routine and half-hearted attempts at spontaneity. I got lost in the monotony that can be found when you’re surrounded by action and stuck in your mind at the same time.

Was it possible to feel alone and bored in an electric city full of people?

Ari was the only way I could’ve cheered myself up. I looked at a map, and I figured out we slept in beds over a thousand miles apart. So I couldn’t see him, couldn’t bring myself to call him, couldn’t get a response to my letters. 

I was going to drown in a sea of my own despair and repetition. 

I took to telling my parents about Ari’s life. They gave me funny looks. When I ran out of things to tell them, I would use my intuition. 

“Ari would hate this painting,” I whispered to my dad at the Art Institute the day we decided to go as a family. 

“What do you think of it?” Dad asked. 

“I think it’s cool, but Ari would hate it.” 

I thought about what he would think of me when we reunited. I’d changed, physically and mentally. That was life, that was growing up. That was what happened when you spent nine months of a very impressionable time in your life somewhere like Chicago, as my mother would tell me. I was the same person, really, but change is change. Would Ari like who I’d become? Had I become someone at all? 

Maybe we wouldn’t be friends when I got back home. It would’ve been fine, I assured myself, because it was just one person. I didn’t need the friendship of every single person I met, because who could live like that? Yeah, if he didn’t like me anymore, I’d be fine. 

Except Ari was more than just a person. 

Well, he was only a person, but he was the person I loved. He was the person I already knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. He was the only person I’d ever met who really saw me, and who I could talk to. He listened to my ramblings about art and history and literature and the secrets of the universe. 

He hadn’t run away yet. 

Unfortunately for me, the operative word in that sentence was “yet”. 

I carried the “yet” around on my shoulders. It held the weight of the anticipation of all the disappointment life has to offer. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> He's so dramatic omg
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	51. Letters On a Page - Chapter Sixteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Party for one, reasons, and uncharacteristic events. Unspeaking mysteries and how long is too long?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was supposed to write yesterday, but I finished a very sad book and I was left emotionally drained. You know how it is. So here we are. 
> 
> This is my 50th chapter! That's a lot. Huh. We're like, half-ish way done now. The second half should go faster, though. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari gets his casts off and meets a dog. The dog follows him home from the park.

“Dante?” 

My dad’s voice cut through my self-pity-party. I got up from where I’d been sitting on my bed and opened the door. 

“You’ve been in there awhile,” he noted, his eyebrows raised. 

“Yeah, I guess I have,” I said. I followed him out into the living room. 

“He lives!” my mom joked, smiling as she saw me. 

“Hey, four hours isn’t  _ that _ long.” 

My parents looked at each other. I ignored them and settled onto the end of the couch. 

“You wanna talk about anything?” my dad asked too casually. 

“Nope.”

“You sure?” 

“Yup.” 

We didn’t say anything. It was one of those silences that made you unsure of whether it was awkward or comfortable. I shifted, and the sound of my clothes against the leather of the couch was much louder than it should have been. 

“So…” my mom attempted. 

“Uh,” my dad said. 

“This isn’t like us,” she said. 

“No, it’s not,” he agreed. 

I just nodded. The hungry quiet settled again. I was tearing my own family apart already, and they didn’t even know my secret. 

“Is everything okay?” my mom asked. 

“Yeah.” 

“Because you know that if it’s not okay, you can tell us, right?” 

“I know. I just…” I trailed off, not sure how to tell them without telling them. “I’m just homesick, I think. You know, it’s just hard.” I felt the space behind my nose burn. 

My mom took my hand, reaching over the coffee table from her spot on our easy chair. “It is hard.” 

I nodded. I knew that I’d cry if I spoke, but I didn’t know why. 

Or, I guess I did know. I knew that if I told them what was wrong, things would change. That I wasn’t ready to tell them the thing they were asking me to tell them, expecting me to tell them. Instead of being able to relinquish the burden, more weight piled on: the weight of their expectations, the weight of what they wanted for me. 

“I’m sorry,” my dad said. “I’m so, so sorry. If there’s anything I could do to make it better…” 

A tear slid down my cheek. I forced myself to breathe. “It’s okay.” 

They watched me cry, silent and tight-lipped. I could see that they wanted to say something but that they didn’t know what I needed to hear. 

When I felt like I could talk again, I searched for something to say. 

“Hey, uh,” I fumbled softly. “Can you teach me how to drive, Dad? I never learned.” 

He chuckled. “You know I’m a terrible driver.” 

“Yeah, you are. Mom?” 

“I don’t want you driving in the city,” she said. 

“Oh, come on. I’m sixteen. I have to learn. We have the car, and nobody’s using it.” 

“Because we’re in Chicago, Dante.” 

“I know, Mom.” 

She went a little soft, then. Any other time, she would’ve rolled her eyes and hidden a smile. But she saw that I was hurting, even when I wasn’t giving her much reason. She saw that, within my silent tears and my halfhearted conversation attempts, my pain was deeper than I knew how to handle. 

My mom, she was inscrutable. 

She knew everything about everybody, but she was always learning. She was soft and sweet, but she was hard, too. She was quieter, and more drawn to the outskirts of a full room than the center, but she could talk and laugh and shine. She was beautiful in her multifaceted nature, as confusing as it could be. 

She squeezed my hand. I squeezed her hand back. 

We looked into each others’ eyes. We didn’t have to talk.

And I decided that maybe my connection with my mother, even through silence, had to be a secret of the universe. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soledad is amazing and I love her. Actually, I love all the parents, but Soledad just holds a special place in my heart. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	52. Letters On a Page - Chapter Seventeen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reality, heartbeat, and protestations. Smiling for the sake of smiling and the feeling of a soul within.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari writes a letter.

Soon after I started moping around, it all changed. Again. 

When I got home from swimming, my mom stepped into the doorway of my room before I could go in to change. 

“Hey,” I protested. I tried to go around her, and she braced her arms on the doorframe on either side of her, blocking me completely, and flashed me a sly grin. “What?” 

Her smile grew, and she whipped something out from her back pocket and held it aloft in front of my face. 

At first, I thought I was hallucinating. I grabbed the letter and ran my fingers over it. 

My mom laughed. “It’s real.” 

I looked at her, feeling myself smile. 

“Came this afternoon.” She kissed my cheek and let me pass. 

As much as I wanted to open the letter right away, I set it on my desk and flew through the shower first. I needed to savor it, enjoy it, and I couldn’t do that smelling like chlorine and sweat. I nearly tripped over myself as I dressed before settling onto the bed and digging in, heart pounding. 

Ari’s handwriting was terrible. I mean, it was really bad. I had to kind of squint a couple of times to make sure I knew what it said. I couldn’t bring myself to be annoyed, though; his fingers had smoothed the page where mine were now, and his mind had put energy into creating this thing that my mind was putting energy into absorbing. 

I read it once, twice. Ari had his casts off. He got a dog named Legs, who liked to sleep in his bed even though Lilly didn’t want Legs in the house. He got a truck, and Jaime was teaching him to drive it. During one of his driving lessons, he brought up his brother and Jaime got upset. I laughed as I read, for no reason but that I finally had the letter I’d imagined getting a hundred times, had worried myself sick over. 

I could picture him in his truck, nodding along to the radio and smiling faintly at nothing in particular. I could picture myself in the seat next to him, smiling because he was smiling and putting my hand on his atop the gear shift. He’d look over at me and his crooked smile would widen. I’d lean over and kiss him on the cheek, different from how my parents did it to me. 

But that would never happen. 

That didn’t even make me sad, because nothing could make me sad when I was holding an Ari letter in my own hands. 

That night, I turned on a flashlight under my covers and read the letter until my eyes pinched with strain and grew heavy with the pull of exhaustion. I traced his messy ink trails with my pinky finger until I could imagine we were touching, even with the thousand-mile gap between us. I smelled the paper to see if it would share his scent (it didn’t, and I felt a little weird for trying). I placed a gentle kiss on his name at the bottom, and I hoped he could feel it a little; in his soul, maybe. 

By the time I nodded off, letter in hand, the corners were bent and it was folded in several new places. There were a few places where the ink had smeared from the warmth and movement of my fingers. Already worn, after just a few hours. 

I couldn’t have him. I couldn’t even see him. So I took what I could get. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fucking finally, omg. This is but a fraction of the happiness our boy deserves. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	53. Letters On a Page - Chapter Eighteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wanting, downsides, and fights. Something to say and the consequences of living.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaand, we're back to angst. That's kind of all I write, so I don't know what I was expecting. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari makes a list of what his life is. Gina bothers him about kissing, so he finds a way to make her stop.

Phy Ed had never been my favorite class. 

I wasn’t terribly unathletic, but it was just unappealing. It wasn’t stimulating, or something. Maybe it was all the sweaty bodies crammed into the rapidly deteriorating gymnasium, or maybe it was the fact that every game we played seemed to be one I didn’t possess the skills to be particularly good at. 

One huge downside was the locker room. 

Years of swimming had gotten me used to being in a locker room with other guys. It didn’t really bother me too much. 

Until, of course, something happened. Because of course something would happen. 

I was coming in from my previous class to change. I was a little late, because I’d stayed behind to ask the teacher about our assignment. These guys in my row of lockers were talking. I didn’t pay attention. 

Then I caught a snippet. 

“He’s gay, you know.” 

I froze without meaning to. 

“Fucking queer,” someone else grunted. I stopped listening

I knew they weren’t talking about me. If they were talking  _ about _ me, they wouldn’t do it in front of me. If they wanted to call me names in front of me, they would’ve said it to my face. It wasn’t about me. I knew that. Still, my face burned and my breath quickened. It was about someone else. 

I didn’t know who they were talking about. I didn’t know if the guy was actually gay. I knew it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter to those boys, because “gay” and “queer” were words you tossed around when you wanted to put someone else down. 

People got into fights over those words. 

Those words made my skin crawl. Those words were who I was. 

I wondered what would happen if people found out. They would call me those words, and they wouldn’t say them nicely. It would be worse than the boys in the locker room, I thought. Much, much worse. 

What would my friends say?

What would Ari say? 

If it happened in El Paso, would Ari leave me? Would I be all alone to deal with the repercussions that came with existing as a person who didn’t follow the rules the world had set for me? 

Would Ari walk away because someone else had something to say about the way I was? If they said something to me, and then they knew he was my friend, they’d say something to him, too. If they called him those names, he might be mad. He knew how to fight. He liked to fight. He could protect himself. Or, he could hurt other people because he didn’t like what they had to say about me or about him. 

And it would be my fault. All my fault. 

It felt like everything was my fault. Everything hard about my life, and the lives of the people I loved, was coming from me. 

I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I was hurting them just by living, though. I couldn’t change that. 

That didn’t mean I didn’t want to. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This gets better soon, I promise. I know this is a lot of short chapters where he just thinks about how hard his life is, and I know that's not very fun. But! It's coming! It really is!
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	54. Letters On a Page - Chapter Nineteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Defining, eyelashes, and it's okay. Surviving a drought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had writer's block but I still did the thing! The thing's not very good, but at least I did the thing. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Jaime teaches Ari to drive on weekends. Ari decides that he's like his dad on the outside but like Dante on the inside, and that scares him.

I got another letter from Ari.

I’d write to him once, twice a week, about anything and everything. Sometimes I’d get one back. My letters were pages full of loopy handwriting and shoved into an envelope. His were a few paragraphs if I was lucky.

It felt like enough. But it also felt like surviving on droplets of rainwater during a drought; false security and nowhere near what it should’ve been, moments from inevitably cutting off.

I knew that wasn’t right. He’d write to me when he wanted to write, like how I’d write when I wanted to. It just so happened that I wanted to write more often than he did. That was okay.

It had to be okay. It was all okay.

When I’d get Ari’s letters, I’d put them in a special shoebox that I kept under my bed. If I ever got lonely, or I felt like I needed to see them, I’d reach under and open the box. Not that there were enough letters to fill it. Not that it mattered.

I read those letters so many times, the edges started to go soft and the creases went limp with wear. I could’ve recited half of them from memory and at least named the general contents of the other half. They were like a baby blanket, something a child would hold onto and use as comfort.

I did feel like a child; latching onto something and refusing to let go even when it barely meant anything. I would read the letters and run my fingers over the words again and again, inventing subtext and reading between the lines to find nonexistent hidden meanings. I would imagine going home and seeing him, to find waiting for me and smiling his wide sideways smile and taking my hand and leaning closer and blinking his gorgeous eyelashes at me and then-

Obsession. Noun. An idea that takes over one’s mind.

_Obsession. Noun. A person who occupies every open space in the brain and fills it with a love like molasses, slow and sticky and sweet. A person whose face is permanently imprinted on the back of your eyelids. A person who you know better than yourself even when you don’t understand him._

Inside me, I made my own dictionary with my own definitions. 

Rewriting the blurring world around me in the only words that made sense. Even when the ones that made sense didn't mean good things for me. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's plot coming up! There was this big dry spot in my outline where the chapters were just like "idk he's sad and gay" but there's plot! Very soon!!
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	55. Letters On a Page - Chapter Twenty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Needing more, grogginess, and negative numbers. Not-so-respectable establishments and a throbbing head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Lilly approves Ari's driving so he can get his license. He keeps writing a few short letters to Dante, who always writes long ones. Ari has a bad dream.

At one of the parties, after kissing Emma for a few minutes in the kitchen, I had another drink. 

Usually, I’d have one or two when I got to a party. I’d have vodka and orange juice, which seemed to be one of the only things that wasn’t revolting and didn’t make me throw up. I put more vodka in than most respectable people would have. It wasn’t like a high school house party was a very respectable establishment, though, so it was fine. 

I’d stop after two, though. Sometimes I’d have three, then sit down and have a bunch of water before I went home. If I went home drunk or smelling like anything stronger than cigarette smoke, my mom would find out. The chance of getting to go to any future parties would reduce to a negative number. 

But that night, I felt like I needed another one.  I’d already had two, and was about to have my water (and even make myself some coffee because I’d been particularly heavy-handed with the alcohol part) . Then Emma and I were kissing, and then, I don’t know, I  just poured myself another one. And then another one. 

I don’t know why I did it. But I did. 

I ended up having four and a half, which was  way  more than I should have. One of the guys I was hanging out with at the party took my last one from me part way through. He told me to go home because he knew about my mother and her therapist ways. 

I walked back home without trying to sober up, a little more giggly and a little less steady than was advisable. It was late, and staying much longer would have earned me a serious talking-to. Luckily, my dad  just peeked his head out of the bedroom door and to say goodnight when I got home. My mom was already asleep and he was groggy. I didn’t have to say anything particularly complicated. 

When I got back to my room, I sat down at my desk to write a letter. For some reason, my generously-tipsy-but-mostly-drunk brain thought it was a great idea. 

I ended up falling asleep at some point. I woke up the next morning with my head on the desk and the sunlight pouring in through my bay window, blinking hard. My head throbbed and I felt heavy and gross. 

The letter I’d written had some spelling mistakes. I went through and fixed them  absentmindedly as I read it through. 

_Dearest darlingest Ari,_

_You have really beautiful eyes, you know that? Just gorgeous. Like a painting or something that’s also very nice. I just love them. _

_I love your eyes and I love you._

_You’re really beautiful Ari. You know that? I think maybe you don’t know that, and it makes me sad. Do you know that? Because it’s true. You’re beautiful and you should love yourself because I love you and I’m a good judge, okay? And I don't like it when you're sad, and if you think you're beautiful maybe you won't be so sad anymore. _

_Here’s why I love you:_

_1\. You’re beautiful on the inside and on the outside. I already said that but I want to say it until you believe it’s true. I don’t lie, Ari. It’s real._

_2\. You always laugh at my jokes, and I love your laugh._

_3\. Even though I talk a lot and I’m really weird, you hang out with me. That’s nice. _

_4\. You haven’t ran away because I’m gay yet. You don’t know I like boys, but I do. I like boys, a lot. Boys, Ari. They’re beautiful._

That was all I’d written before falling asleep. 

I wondered what the rest of the list would look like. I had some ideas, but the honesty had  been drawn out of me. 

There was no way I was sending the letter, of course. But I couldn’t help but think about what Ari would say to me if I gave it to him. He’d see how strange I was. He’d know all my secrets. Would he get mad? He’d  probably get mad. Would he hit me? I didn’t want him to hit me, of course. I didn’t want him to feel like hitting me. 

I crumpled the letter and put it in the bottom of my sock drawer. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once, I was sleeping over at my friend's house and I started waxing poetic about girls at two am, as you do, and my friend told me in the morning that his favorite quote was the one I ended with. I put it in this chapter, gender-flipped (I like boys, a lot. Boys, Ari. They're beautiful). I mean, I feel like Dante would say/write stupid stuff about boys while drunk, right??
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	56. Letters On a Page - Chapter Twenty One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Imagining, magic, and grey. Why is it so goddamn cold?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari writes Dante a letter.

At the beginning of December, it happened for the first time. 

The snow fell lazily, soft white flecks drifting against a pale grey sky. It had already gotten cold for the winter, air and gusts of wind nipping at my exposed skin when I went outside. 

“Really?” Emma said one day as I arrived at school. We’d bumped into each other on the way in. “You’re really wearing all that? It’s not even officially winter.” 

“Yeah, well, living in California and Texas all your life isn’t exactly good training for this.” 

“It’s kind of overkill, though, don’t you think?” 

“No, this is perfectly reasonable,” I defended. 

All our friends ended up poking fun at my ensemble. I was wearing a coat thicker than any coat should have a reason to be with thick mittens, a stocking cap pulled down over my forehead, and two scarves pulled up to wrap around my face. The only bare skin was a thin strip around my eyes. 

The thing was, I didn’t mind the cold. It was okay. I bundled up, sure, but the idea of the cold didn’t really bother me. 

But the cold was different from the snow. The cold was an ever-present reality that I’d gotten used to. 

The snow, though. The snow was magical. 

It made me kind of giddy in a way I hadn’t been since we left El Paso. I felt like Christmas was really coming. Not that I was a huge fan of Christmas, but I was getting into the mood. It was definitely the snow spurring it on. 

I decided to wrap myself in all my layers and go shopping for gifts. 

The El was packed with people who had my same idea. I stood and held onto one of the poles, smiling at everyone who made eye contact with me. They couldn’t really see it under my scarves, but my eyes probably crinkled a little bit. Maybe they just knew I was smiling at them. I made up stories about the ones who smiled back, and then stories about the ones who didn’t. 

The stores were just as busy as the train. I had my favorite streets to shop on where I knew my way around, and most of the doors had signs on them about Christmas specials. 

I dawdled on the sidewalk for a few minutes, holding out my palms and watching the snowflakes land on the wool of my mittens and melt. A cart was selling hot cocoa. I waited in the line and bought myself a cup, then promptly licked the whipped cream right off the top when the woman handed it to me. 

When the cold became a little too much, I ducked into the store with the fewest people. It was small and cozy, full of homemade trinkets and hand-drawn greeting cards. The air smelled of vanilla and cinnamon. It was so much warmer than the outdoors that it was like walking into a wall of comfort when I entered the doorway. I sighed with the relief of being in normal temperatures and tugged my scarves off my face. 

I wandered the aisles, totally in awe of each small thing. Every single one had taken so much of the creator’s time and creativity, it seemed disrespectful not to stop and admire each one. 

I turned the corner of the last aisle, not having found anything perfect for anyone I knew, and something caught my eye. 

A miniature Christmas tree was being used to hold a few things. Some necklaces and earrings draped from the deep green branches. 

And a pair of blue tennis shoes, connected by a string. 

I took them in my hand and stared down at them, picturing what the string would look like hung over the mirror of Ari’s red pickup truck. What would they look like with him smiling at them, and me smiling at him, and then him turning to me and smiling because I was smiling? 

Before I could start daydreaming, I took the tiny shoes and paid. 

On the train ride home, I took off my mittens and rolled the shoes over in my chilled palms, trying to infuse them with my energy so Ari could feel it when he got them. I closed my eyes and imagined pouring warmth and joy from my fingertips into them. 

It was stupid how happy it made me to imagine our fingers touching in the same place on something other than a letter. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I live in the upper midwest, and the town I'm from is about fifteen miles south of Canada. I now live elsewhere, but it's still just a hundred miles or so from the border and let me tell you something: It's fucking cold. Have you ever felt -50 degrees Fahrenheit? Have you ever seen what twenty five feet of snow looks like? Because you should not. (We don't actually get twenty five feet, but the wind will blow it up against buildings and it'll get really high.) If you don't live here or somewhere equally as bad/worse, don't come here. Save yourself. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	57. Letters On a Page - Chapter Twenty Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Confusion and worlds inside of worlds inside of worlds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short chapter here. The plot is restarting momentarily!
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Charlie shows up at Ari's house and asks him to shoot up. When Ari says know, some words are exchanged. "You're gay, vato, you know that?" "Yeah, I'm gay and I want to kiss you." Ari finds an old drunk to buy him a six-pack, which he then drinks.

Ari wrote me another letter. It was short, as always. 

He’d gotten his drivers’ license. 

I wouldn’t know how to drive if I had to do it to save my life. I could probably guess, but, well, it certainly wouldn’t be right. 

It felt accurate, really. Like Ari was back home, and he had this thing he could do to go and see the world. He could have experiences whenever he wanted. My way to do that was the same as everyone in this city; buses and trains and long walks weren’t the same as driving a car. 

I felt stuck, once again. Stuck in a world that didn’t have a place for me. Stuck in a place that didn’t have a world for me. I didn’t have a world that I could explore and feel like Ari did, because my world was reduced by other peoples’ decisions. 

Parents made choices that shaped our lives. That was the truth. And all too often, we didn’t have a say in any of it. I knew that first-hand. That was why being an adult seemed so perfect to teenagers. 

I suppose being an adult can’t be so different. Adults and parents don’t really know what they’re doing. Not really. 

Does anyone really know what they’re doing?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I mean, fair question, Dante. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	58. Letters On a Page - Chapter Twenty Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Differences, specificity, and overcrowded hallways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go!
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari finds an envelope with his brother's name on it. He doesn't open it.

“Dante?” 

I turned around. Everyone was making their way out of the English classroom. 

“Can you stay a moment?” Ms. Hutchins asked pleasantly. 

“Sure,” I said, shuffling over and weaving through the crowd funneling towards the narrow doorway. 

The last of the kids finally squeezed into the hall. Ms. Hutchins got up from her desk and looked at me. Her green eyes squinted a little and her head tilted to the side. One bangled arm reached vaguely toward her face, almost like she was going to stroke her chin but wasn’t sure how to. 

“...can I help you?” 

She smiled and dropped her hand. “Yes, I’m sorry. I was just wondering… I was wondering if you’ve been doing alright.” 

I furrowed my eyebrows (just like Ari would have). 

“You seem to be a bit more… distant. Your grade isn’t slipping, but you seem sort of far-away. A little more sad,” she explained. “It’s been going on for awhile, but I wanted to make sure everything’s okay at home.” 

“Oh,” I said. How specific. “Yeah, everything’s fine. You know, just kind of homesick.” 

She smiled sympathetically. “If there’s anything you’d like to talk about, I’m always here.” 

“Thank you.” 

“Of course.” 

That seemed to be all, so I nodded and started to leave.

“Oh, and Dante?” she added, just before I’d walked out. I paused to listen. “Being different can be very difficult. I know that better than anyone. I’m here for that, too. I can promise you that it only gets better.” 

I kept walking. I didn’t know what to say. 

It seemed like Ms. Hutchins knew something about me that everyone else overlooked. 

I thought about my teacher living with her best friend and their cats. I thought about how she dressed oddly and talked about the strangest things (did crystals really have healing powers?). 

She was nice, and she knew what it was like to be different. 

Even if it wasn’t the same, it sort of felt like enough. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case I wasn't clear enough, the teacher's a lesbian. And Dante doesn't realize that.   
> (Also, energy crystals, which Dante mentions his teacher talked about, are fascinating and I may have spent way too much time looking at them on Google instead of writing.)
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	59. Letters On a Page - Chapter Twenty Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Compensation, more grey, and mediocre photography. Sugar and spice and wanting everything to be nice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Due to increasing stress levels and decreased sleep, my brain has decided to not want to write. This is unfortunate, considering I write everyday. So. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari gets Dante's gift in the mail.

Christmas approached slowly. The weather was increasingly cold and grey, and the snow seemed to fall in a never-ending supply, though most of it melted when it hit the city-warmed sidewalks. Everything was decorated in the hues of the season; rich red and forest green, gold and silver, pale blue and ivory. Buildings were warmer, too many foods were filled with cinnamon, and the entire atmosphere bursted with cheer. 

My parents and I planned to spend the holiday in our apartment. We’d sleep way too late and then open gifts before settling in for a long afternoon of pajamas, overeating, and calling every relative and friend we could think of. It would be as perfect as it could be in a city across the country from our home. 

I’d sent Ari the tennis shoes for his truck and a short letter. I even tucked a photo of me into the envelope at the last second before I could chicken out; I was standing in front of the Christmas tree, face scrunched and mouth wide with a burst of laughter at something off-camera (probably my dad). It wasn’t a great photo, but at least it was current.

On Christmas Eve, a package arrived for me, addressed in Ari’s awful handwriting, forced as stiff and neat as possible, which somehow managed to be worse than usual. I sliced it open and searched for a letter tucked into the side. 

There was no letter.

But what I found managed to be more than proper compensation.

The book’s smooth hardcover, swathed in shades of dark purple, was a picture of the painting. I picked it up, and it was sturdy and heavy and new. The white letters on the cover, reading “Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa,” were slightly raised. I ran my fingers over them and smiled. 

I felt a twinge of guilt for buying him a trinket for his truck while I was holding a brand-new art book that looked like it belonged on the coffee table in a rich person’s house. Why had I thought the shoes were enough? Why hadn’t I known that nothing could be enough because I wasn’t even good enough to talk to Ari, much less send him a Christmas gift, or be his best friend, or be in love with him? Why hadn’t I realized that I was just a weird kid who attached to things and refused to let go and I was overwhelming with all my emotions and I never stopped talking and I was just me, just Dante, and he was Ari and he was smart and thoughtful and beautiful and… 

I forced myself to stop spiraling.

_No spiraling on Christmas._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love him too much, which I feel like I say every chapter. But I'm going to keep saying it because Dante deserves the entire world.
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	60. Letters On a Page - Chapter Twenty Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Melting, illegality, and stupidity. Croaky voices and how many ways to say hello.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is this good??? I don't know, I don't think I can do it justice. This is an attempt.
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Dante calls Ari the day after Christmas.

“Hello?” 

Hearing Lilly’s voice on the other end of the line was like stepping into a warm room with a fireplace after wandering around in the Illinois cold for hours. I felt myself grinning. 

“Hi, Lilly.” 

“Dante! I’m so glad you called! How are things going?” 

“Good. Yeah, it’s good,” I said stupidly.

“Oh, good. School’s going okay?” 

“Yeah, school’s great.” 

“Good,” she said again, her fond voice thawing me out from the inside. “You know, Jaime and I really miss you, Dante. He’s right here and he’s smiling at me, and now he’s laughing because I’m talking about him.” 

“Oh,” I croaked. I got kind of choked up. “I miss you too.” 

“I think Ari  _ really _ misses you.”

“He does?” 

She hummed a little laugh. “He won’t say it, but he really does.” 

“Oh.” 

“He’s not here right now. He’s working.” 

I frowned. “On the day after Christmas?” 

“Yes.” She sighed. “I tried to convince him to stay home…” 

“Wait, I didn’t even know he had a job.” 

“He didn’t mention it?” she asked, sounding as confused as I felt. 

“No. He didn’t mention it.” 

I promised to call back later. Lilly handed the phone to Jaime for a second so he could say hello. 

When I hung up, I felt a brand new ache. I hadn’t even realized that I would miss the other Mendozas so much, but it was real and it hurt.

A few hours of pacing and knee-bouncing later, I picked up the phone and dialed again. I didn’t even have to think about the number; I probably knew it better than our own. 

**“Hi,”** I said.

**“Hi,”** he said. 

And, God, if talking to Lilly was like coming in from the cold, talking to Ari was like letting out a breath I hadn’t been able to stop holding. I melted onto the floor beneath me and pictured him on the other end, holding the phone in his hand. A single word, and I was swooning. I was so far gone. I swear, I could’ve written sonnets about that single word. I could’ve gotten lost in its two letters, wandering for an eternity and a half in my relief and wonder. I could’ve sunk my fingers into the deep, creamy richness of his voice. I could’ve drunk it and never be thirsty again, fulfilled by the gentle syllable formed with the curl of his lips.

**“Merry Christmas,”** I said back instead.

**“Did it snow in Chicago?”**

**“No.”** It hadn’t snowed for Christmas, just the weeks before.  **“Just cold. And gray. I mean really cold.”**

**“Sounds nice.”**

**“I kind of like it. But I’m tired of the gray days. They say it will be worse in January. February, too.”**

**“That sucks.”**

**“Yeah, it does suck.”**

I didn’t say anything for a second, because I forgot how to breathe. Was I talking too much? I was definitely talking too much. And it was about myself, so that wasn’t good.  _ Think of something…  _

**“So you’re working?”** I asked, latching onto the first coherent thought I could muster.

**“Yeah, flipping burgers at the Charcoaler. Trying to save up some money.”** I could hear the shrug in his voice. He wasn’t a shrugger, but I could tell. 

**“You didn’t tell me.”**

**“Yeah, it’s not important,”** he said.  **“Just a shitty job.”**

**“Well, you’re not going to save too much money buying nice art books for your friends.”** I grinned into the phone and I heard him let out a low laugh (I nearly fainted; that should’ve been illegal). 

**“So you got the book?”**

**“I’m holding it in my lap.** **_Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa_ ** **by Lorenz E.A. Eitner. It’s a beautiful book, Ari.”**

Just like that, I got choked up again. I could feel Ari hoping and praying that I wouldn’t cry, so I didn’t. But I really felt like it, and I guess I don’t really know why. I put a hand over the phone and cleared my throat once, twice, then brought it back.  **“How many burgers did you flip to buy the book?”**

**“That’s a very Dante question.”**

**“That’s a very Ari answer.”**

And we laughed. We laughed, and it felt like nothing had ever felt before but also like every other time we’d done it in the months we’d known one another. Maybe we’d known each other in a previous life, too, because it felt like the same as every time I’d ever really laughed and it mattered. I was so, so in love in those moments, listening to his clear laughter bubble up golden. 

He missed me. Lilly had said so. I could feel it, when we talked. I missed him more than I would ever miss anything, I was convinced. I missed him like you would miss a limb cut from you. 

I wanted to slow the conversation and stretch it into the next few months so I wouldn’t have to go so long without feeling the way I felt when he talked to me. 

But I couldn’t. When we hung up, I let the tears fall. My shoulders shook silently. I pressed the back of my hand to my nose and scrunched up my face, trying not to make any sound. 

Then I started laughing, wet and croaky as I cried. I laughed at everything and nothing and everything in between. I remembered I once thought that was what life was: everything and nothing and all that fell in between. I laughed harder at the memory. 

Silly boy. 

Silly boy, thinking I could understand what life was. Silly boy, thinking I could grasp the depths of something so all-encompassing, it is literally the only thing that existed. Thinking I could sum it all up in a single, poetic-adjacent sentence. Silly, silly boy. 

I knew nothing about life except for love. 

Love. Why did it have to hurt so much?

Love. Love was pain, and pain was all I knew. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can I take one single chapter and not add unnecessary angst? No, no I cannot.  
> Also, Dante is so incredibly gay that he almost died when Ari said "hi." Literally just the one word. Just "hi." I really wrote a whole goddamn paragraph about a single-word greeting because this boy is so gay. Wow. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	61. Letters On a Page - Chapter Twenty Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mind fog.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little chapter! Tiny! 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: New Year's Eve. A kiss.

New Year’s Eve. The end of 1987. 

I couldn’t decide if it was a good year. 

Instead of dwelling on that, I went to a party. I went and I drank way too much and I kissed Emma very sloppily at midnight (and other times) and I got high. I let my worrying slip away behind the curtain of alcohol and pot and the hazy atmosphere and too many bodies. 

Fuck 1987. 

Years didn’t even matter. It was all fine. Everything was  _ fine.  _

_ Fine, fine, fine. _

My drunken brain played the words on repeat as I stumbled home and prayed that my parents would be in bed. I wasn’t thinking about liking boys, I wasn’t thinking about El Paso, and I wasn’t thinking about Ari. 

_ Fine, fine, fine. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	62. Letters On a Page - Chapter Twenty Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rolling out of bed, beginnings, and depressing confetti.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another year for our boys! 1988. A good year? I wasn't alive, I don't know. It was an interesting year for Ari and Dante. We shall see. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari wants to know about his brother, but doesn't open the envelope with Bernardo's name on it.

I woke on New Year’s Day hungover and exhausted. 

1988\. 

I groaned and rolled off my bed, then lay on the floor for a minute before peeling my long limbs upward. My head hurt. 

Instead of going to the kitchen and facing my parents, I sat at my desk to make a list of resolutions. Here’s what I came up with: 

  * _Be nice to people._


  * Tell Mom and Dad “thank you” more often.


  * Stop being so anxious.


  * Tell Dad I like boys, and maybe Mom, too.



There was a problem with my last one.

I was an only child. If I married a boy, then there was no way for my parents to have grandchildren. That’s what they deserved. 

They were good people, my parents. The best. They’d done so many things right as parents. They’d practically given me the world. They taught me about life, and they taught me how to learn about it myself. They taught me how to make tough choices. They taught me how to love myself, even when it was hard. They taught me how to love other people. They taught me so many things, and they would teach me so many more. I was learning from them everyday. 

The best of people. 

And they ended up with a son like me, who couldn’t even love like a normal person. Who couldn’t even give them grandkids. 

I tore up my list into tiny pieces. It was cathartic, and it distracted me from my tears. When I was done ripping it up, I tossed the pile into the air and watched the bits settle around me like depressing confetti. 

Then I bent down to pick it all up. Didn’t need to irritate my parents with a mess on my floor.

They already had enough reasons to be disappointed in me. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your parents wouldn't be disappointed in you for making a mess, you goof. He's really dramatic in my head, if you couldn't tell. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	63. Letters On a Page - Chapter Twenty Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mortification, thinking too much, and polite company. Shaking hands with your best friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been long awaiting this chapter, and I hope it's not terrible. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari gets an interesting letter from Dante.

There was a part of liking boys that people didn’t talk about in polite company. 

Well, people didn’t talk about gay people in polite company, full stop. But… 

I’d been thinking about it a lot. Too much. I couldn’t talk to anyone about it. Well, I could, but… 

My dad. I could ask my dad. But… 

It was a whole lot of “but”. A whole lot of things I didn’t want to do simply because it would be weird. 

So, of course, I decided to make things even weirder. 

I got out my godforsaken pen and paper. And I wrote a fucking letter.  _ That fucking letter. _

**_Ari,_ **

**_Do you masturbate? I’m thinking you think that’s a funny question. But it’s a very serious question. I mean, you’re pretty normal. At least, you’re more normal than me._ **

**_So maybe you masturbate or maybe you don’t. Maybe I’m a little obsessed with this topic lately. Maybe it’s just a phase. But, Ari, if you do masturbate, what do you think about?_ **

**_I know I should ask my dad about this, but I don’t feel like it. I love my dad--but do I have to tell him everything?_ **

**_Sixteen-year-olds masturbate, right? How many times a week is normal?_ **

**_Your friend,_ **

**_Dante_ **

I was caught between being embarrassed and not. I was taught to think about sex as just another thing that people did, and I wasn’t supposed to be embarrassed about it. Not that masturbating was like sex. But maybe it was. I had no idea. That was why I wrote the letter in the first place. 

I don’t know if I regret sending it. I think I regret making him uncomfortable. He was uncomfortable, of course, and he didn’t write to me for a long time after that. I waited a little longer before sending my next one because I felt like he needed to take a breath after that one. 

Even across the country, I could make him uncomfortable. I knew I was making him uncomfortable, and I did it anyway. God, I was the worst. How could we ever be friends when I came back? 

I wondered what life would be like without him, now that I knew what I was missing. 

I stopped wondering. Some things were too painful to think about. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Basically: The Author Tries To Avoid the Topic As Much As Humanly Possible.
> 
> Now, here's the deal. I know that Dante's supposed to think about this a lot but. I just can't do it. I don't know what it is, but I just can't write about it. I physically cannot. So this is all there's gonna be about this particular topic. And I'm sorry, but also. I just can't. Blech.
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	64. Letters On a Page - Chapter Twenty Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Recounting, steady hands, and distance. Soledad's mantra and Polaroid pictures.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made a happy chapter! I'm so proud!!
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari asks Ileana on a date, and she says no. When she doesn't show up at school and Gina and Susie say she dropped out, he goes to her house. He finds out that she got married. Kissing doesn't mean a damn thing.

Days stretched to weeks and on into months. The biting chill of winter gave way to a rainy spring, and I seemed to grow with each passing day. By the time April came to a close, I was exactly as tall as my dad. 

“See?” I said to him as we stood back-to-back in our living room one day. My mom had declared it a tie. 

“I want a recount,” he protested, laughter in his eyes. 

“Nope.” I popped the ‘p’ and crossed my arms. “I’m as tall as you. Am I a man now, Dad?” 

He chuckled. “Being a man is a lot more than being tall.” 

“You’ll always be our little boy,” my mom said. She kissed my cheek. She had to stand on her toes to do that now. 

“Yeah, yeah.” 

I went to a party. I was always going to parties, but this party was different from the others. 

I was in the kitchen kissing Emma. It was going normally; we stood there kissing, I was imagining that I was kissing Ari, she had her fingers in my hair, etcetera etcetera. 

She pulled away. 

“Everything okay?” I asked. I was panting a little, what with having my tongue halfway down her throat moments earlier. 

**“Dante,”** she started slowly.  **“I think that when you kiss me, you’re kissing someone else.”**

I knew what she meant.  **“Yeah. I guess so.”**

**“Are you kissing another girl? Or are you kissing a boy?”**

I blinked. She blinked back. We stared at each other, the sounds and smells of the party churning in the room’s thick air. 

I broke first.  **“A boy.”** I hoped she wouldn’t be mad, but it felt like it didn’t really matter. I don’t know, it just felt like it wasn’t important. 

**“Anyone I know?”**

**“No. I think I’m just making up a boy in my head.”** The lie came easily. Easier than it should have. 

**“Any boy?”**

**“Yeah. A good-looking boy.”**

**“Well, yeah,”** she said, laughing a little.  **“As good-looking as you?”**

I just shrugged. I was glad she wasn’t mad. 

She tilted her head and regarded me, as if for the first time. “You should come to my place tomorrow night. Seven o’clock.” 

The next day, I showed up at her apartment. Her mother let me in, and I gave her a potted plant I’d picked up on the way.  _ You can’t show up empty-handed _ , my mom had said. She always said that. It was like a mantra, how often she said it. 

Emma took me to her bedroom. She sat down right on the floor, so I sat down in front of her. 

We tried to talk about school for a little bit. It didn’t work. 

“So, you like boys?” she said finally. 

“Yeah.”

“Cool.” 

“That’s it?” I asked. “Cool?” 

“I mean, if you want me to, I can say something else. It is cool, though.” 

I felt myself grinning. She grinned back. She was pretty. 

Half an hour later, the floor was scattered with things; she had a whole case of makeup and nail polish and hair products spilled over the carpet. Flashes of color kept catching my eye. 

“Stop looking away!” 

“Sorry!” 

She finished whatever she was doing on my eyelid. “There.” 

“Are we done yet?” 

“Almost. Other side.” 

When she was satisfied, she handed me a hand-held mirror with a flourish. 

My face was covered in the brightest of makeup shades; cheeks a shocking pink, eyelids bright purple and blue, and lips painted with a shade of green for some unknown reason. The eyeliner she’d labored over was smudged out just the right amount, and my eyes looked way bigger. I giggled. It was done wonderfully. It looked awful. 

She was laughing, too. “So bad.” 

“So bad,” I wheezed in agreement. 

I did hers with steady hands but no idea what I was doing. It was worse than my own. 

After we finished laughing, she rummaged in her closet and emerged with a Polaroid camera. She sat down next to me and grabbed my chin, then pulled my face close to hers and planted an over-exaggerated kiss on my cheek. She snapped a photo. 

It came out a little blurry. I was laughing, she was smiling against my face, and both looked horrible. 

“To remember me by,” she said, pressing it into my hand when I stood at her door to leave. I’d managed to scrub everything from my skin, and my face felt raw and stiff at the same time. 

“Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

As I walked home, I thought of what it would be like to marry her. When she held my hand, it felt warm. When she kissed my cheek for the photo, I laughed. When she was a breath away from my face trying to smear on something sparkly, it tickled. When she’d asked me to part my lips to put the green stuff on them, I was focused on the way her eyes squinted in concentration. 

I thought that if Ari had done any of those things, I would have fainted dead away. Or at the very least, felt something other than friendship and smiles. 

I thought that if a boy did that to me, my stomach would flip. Any boy could make me feel more than a girl could. It was always Ari, to me, but boys were still something more. Always more than they should’ve been, always more than girls. 

For the first time, I thought that it might just be okay. 

I thought that if I had people like Emma, who told me it was cool and did terrible makeup on me to make us laugh, it might be okay. If I had people like Ms. Hutchins, the English teacher, who knew something about me I hadn’t even thought of telling her, it might be okay. 

I was coming to understand that the world was made of people who disliked people like me. The world had people in it, though, who disagreed and saw me as just another guy. 

I was coming to understand that the latter had more power, sometimes, than the former. 

The secrets of the universe could be found in the people whose smiles didn’t lessen when they found out the mysteries living inside of you. The secrets of the universe were hidden in the eyes of strangers and friends who knew you for you. 

The secrets of the universe weren’t as far away as they seemed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay!   
> I decided to like Emma. I thought she should be a nice person, since she was nice in the letters. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	65. Letters On a Page - Chapter Thirty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spilled ink, first drafts, and mingling. Suddenly not so far away and the stardust we're made of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're almost done with Chicago! Our boys are almost back in the same place! 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari gets a letter from Dante.

The last party I’d be going to in Chicago was on a Saturday.

Before I went, I sat down and scribbled a letter to Ari. It would be my last letter, so I sat down and drafted it without a second thought, letting my pen spill every emotion onto the page. I could edit later. 

**_Dear Ari,_ **

**_Seven to one. That’s the ratio of Dante Letters to Ari Letters. Just so you know. When I get back this summer, I’m going to have to take you swimming and drown you. Almost drown you. Then I’ll give you mouth to mouth and revive you. How does that sound? Sounds good to me. Am I freaking you out yet?_ **

My heart pounded in my ears. I let it, and kept writing. 

I talked about Emma at the party. Wanting to go home. Worrying about disappointing my parents. Worrying about not being friends with him when I got home. Worrying about telling my dad about liking boys. 

**_Look,_ ** I wrote,  **_I just want you to know that I don’t want you to feel like you have to be my friend when I get back. I’m not exactly best-friend material, am I?_ **

**_Your friend,_ **

**_Dante_ **

I smoothed the paper in front of me. It was just a first draft, I assured myself. I could change things. It didn’t have to be so raw in the end, and I could make it whatever I wanted. Right? 

But I never changed it. I just folded it into an addressed envelope and left it for the mailman. (Ari’s dad was a mailman. I wondered if he was their mailman and their mail got out faster.) I didn’t let myself think about how insane I was to send that letter. I mean, telling someone that many things in one letter was crazy enough, and I was telling him about wanting to kiss him, so it was more than insane. What’s a word that means something more intense than insane? I don’t know, but it was really, really crazy. 

At the party, I walked around and chatted. I didn’t kiss Emma, but we did talk for a while. 

When people started smoking inside and the air was getting too thick, I slid onto the balcony to get some air. 

“Hey,” I said. 

“Hey,” David said. David, from English class and lunch. I was surprised to see him; he was the really quiet sort and he didn’t like going to parties. 

“Getting some air?” 

“Yeah.” 

“It’s a lot of people.” 

“Sure is.” 

I stood there, staring out at the street below us. I couldn’t think of anything to say to him. 

“Uh, Emma told me that you… that you, uh, like guys?” 

I startled. “She told you that?”

“Oh! No, no, not like that. It’s just, I… So do I?”

He said it like a question. I smiled. 

“Nice.”

“Yeah.” He kind of cleared his throat, like he didn’t know how far the conversation could take us but he didn’t want to give up yet. “I don’t know anybody else who…” 

“I don’t, either.”

He nodded. 

“I’ve never even kissed a guy, let alone had a boyfriend, or whatever.” I don’t know why I said that. I did, though. 

“I haven’t, either.” 

We were close, suddenly. Our fingers brushed on the railing of the balcony, and when I looked up, he was staring at me. His eyes were dark green. He smelled faintly like orange peel. 

_If I just leaned in a little bit…_

“Well, I’d better get back inside,” I said too loudly, taking an overly large step back. “I think Emma’s waiting for me.” 

He looked disappointed, but he tried to smile. “Yeah.” 

Back inside, I thought of the letter I’d put in the mail earlier. A letter that was spilling everything to my best friend, the love of my life. Ari was my destiny, I was sure of it. Ari was supposed to be my first and my last. Our souls were entwined long before we were corporeal. The universe made us from the same starstuff, crafting our minds with enough shared and enough different to make puzzle pieces, smoothly carved just to be slotted together. 

I couldn’t let my first kiss with a boy be with anyone other than my soulmate. I just couldn’t do it. Not when we were meant to be. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good choice, Dante. Good choice. 
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who's been reading! I love you all and I really appreciate your kind words. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudgedinkwriting.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	66. Letters On a Page - Chapter Thirty One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Goodbyes. The best thing, true understanding, and Dante is fabulous.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter in Letters On a Page! Only one chapter today, since I have to take some time to outline the next part of the book. I'm so excited!
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Gina and Susie go with Ari into the desert to get drunk when school finishes.

The last day of school flew by in a blur of too-hot classrooms and lazy laughter. We were practically jumping with excitement and the anticipation of three blissful months without school. Teachers did nothing but hand back papers and let us talk. 

At the end of English, Ms. Hutchins hugged me and smiled. 

“Thank you,” I said.

“You are fabulous, Dante Quintana. You’ll do amazing things with that big mind and big heart of yours. Don’t you ever forget it.” 

Looking into her shining eyes, with her bangle-filled arms braced against my shoulders to look at me steadily, I believed her. Even if I’d never see her again. I hugged her a second time before I walked to my next class. 

When the final bell rang, I found my friends waiting for me at my locker. I didn’t know many of them particularly well, but I said my goodbyes. David smiled shyly, and I smiled back in spite of the uncomfortable memory of our almost-kiss on someone’s balcony. 

Emma walked with me down the hallway and we stopped when we got outside. 

“Dante,” she said, taking my hand. I knew it was different than when she used to do it. I knew that she understood it could never mean what it was supposed to mean. 

“Emma.” 

“You don’t have to call me, okay?” She was looking at me all seriously. “If you decide to call me or write to me, I’d love it. But you don’t have to, okay? Like, if you come back to the city, let me know, but I get that we’re probably not going to see each other again. I get it.  _ I get it.” _

I loved her for that. For understanding.

“I  _ will _ try to write. It might be hard, but I’ll try.” 

“I hope you find the boy you were kissing when you kissed me. He’d be lucky to have you. You’re incredible, Dante.” 

“I hope you find a boy that would rather be kissing you than anybody else. You’re beautiful, and smart, and amazing, and you should never settle for anyone who doesn’t love you like you deserve.” 

She laughed. “Thanks.” 

“No, seriously. He’d better think you’re the best thing in every room. Wanna know a secret?” I leaned into her ear and whispered, “you are.”

She threw her arms around me. 

My parents were waiting when I got back to the apartment. Everything we’d brought with us was packed into the car already; I was the only thing we were waiting for. 

“How was school?” my dad asked, a big grin on his face.

“Good.” 

“Good,” my mom said. “You want to have one last look around? We have to leave right away if we want to follow our itinerary.” 

“Sure.” 

I wandered through the rooms, dragging my eyes over everything. It was strange; nine months was so long, but it never felt like home. I wasn’t even sad. I knew that we’d never step foot in this apartment again, and all I wanted to do was leave. 

My room, with the ceiling I’d memorized and the big bay window. My room, where I’d spent countless hours wondering. My room, where I’d fully realized that I wasn’t the only boy who liked other boys. 

I didn’t feel anything as I walked out, or as my dad locked the door behind us and we got in the car. 

I’d miss Chicago. I’d miss the El train and the shops on my favorite street. I’d miss the Art Institute. I’d miss cold weather. I’d miss my wacky English teacher. I’d miss Emma. 

But it wasn’t home. Home was El Paso, home was Ari. 

And when I thought of home,  _ oh.  _

To say that I missed it was such an understatement that I don’t even have a comparison for it. I missed it more than I thought was possible. It made my chest physically ache. I don’t have words for what it felt like. 

I knew I’d never feel like that about Chicago. 

I settled deeper into my seat as my mom pulled onto the highway that led out of the city. My dad put in a cassette, leaving the volume low. 

I felt different from when I’d arrived. Older, of course. Stronger. More like I could take on the world. I’d been in a sort of funk, depressed and anxious at the same time. I was already feeling more like myself, and we weren’t even home yet. 

Would Ari be different, too? Of course he would. That was human nature. That was what it was to be a teenager and a human being; the growing and changing didn’t stop for anything. 

My eyes slid shut and I let my thoughts drift elsewhere. I was lulled by the faint sound of the radio and the constant motion of our car into a deep sleep. I dreamt sweetly of dark brown eyes and a crooked smile. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am SO ready to write the summer. The ups and downs, man. It's gonna be real. 
> 
> As always, you can find on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	67. Remember the Rain - Chapter One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Breaking, lots of words, and sprawling cities. Stardust sprinklings and really, how long is a day?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're done with Chicago! We're back!!
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari's summer starts the same as it always does: arguing with his mom. She tells him to make it a good summer.   
> "Maybe I'll fall in love."

Washington, D.C. was wide and sprawling in a way that Chicago wasn’t; there was no clump of tall buildings, but the monuments and museums and office buildings were scattered like spilled stardust through the area. 

The Library of Congress was the single most wonderful place outside of El Paso. How much knowledge was within those walls? How many secrets of the universe could be found in those pages? 

I remembered the postcard I’d sent on the day we left. It felt so long ago, but it had only been a few days. 

**_We’re driving back today via Washington, D.C. My dad wants to look something up at the Library of Congress. See you soon. Love, Dante._ **

My heart had raced as I sent it. _"Love, Dante."_ I’d convinced myself that there had been nothing to lose. Nothing, nothing, nothing… 

I didn’t even know if we’d be friends when I got back. I wanted to stop feeling like the world would break open if I said a wrong word. Secrets were secrets, sure, but it wasn’t the end of the world. It couldn’t be. 

_ Not the end of the world. _ I told myself that over and over again until the words sounded like jumbled sounds some insane person decided to stick together and the meanings felt foreign. 

This summer was going to be okay. Even if Ari told me to fuck off and leave him alone forever, I was going to be okay. It was still El Paso, and it was still summer, and I had the swimming pool and the library and the hot weather and arguing with my parents (until they were over it, and then I’d argue with myself). I was going to be fine. 

Trying to believe yourself might be one of the most difficult things about telling a lie. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost to El Paso!
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	68. Remember the Rain - Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Recharging, wide grins, and flying. Healing already and for God's sake, somebody get Dante a fainting couch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They're reuniting! Finally!
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari goes for a run by Dante's house and gets to see him.

Home, at last. 

I got all my things set up in my bedroom and ate dinner with my parents before passing out in my own bed. It felt  _ so good,  _ I didn’t even lie awake with my thoughts. Road trips were tiring, especially when you had so many things to think about. 

The next morning, I sat out on the porch with a glass of water and my sketchbook. I wasn’t drawing, though; I watched the world being the world. 

Just as I stood up to go in, something caught my eye. I turned. 

And there he was. 

He stood there in front of the park, his back to me, watching a dog running through the open space.

I didn’t even think, I just yelled,  **“Ari!”**

He turned around. 

Something blossomed in my chest, warm and bright. It spread through my limbs, and all of a sudden I was flying. I was hovering over the ground, swinging my legs and laughing. The wind was cool in my hair, and I was laughing harder now. It was hotter in the air, and I was going up, and up, and up… 

Except I wasn’t, really. 

Really, I was standing stock-still, staring at Ari, who was staring at me. He’d crossed the road at some point. I didn’t remember that. 

He was different. His hair was long, to his shoulders, and it was fluttering in the soft breeze. He’d grown, of course, but it was mostly in the shoulders; he was wider there. 

Speaking of shoulders. 

I mean, damn. The guy clearly worked out, now. The arms. The shoulders. The chest, through his shirt. The legs, even. If I was a blusher, I definitely would’ve been beet-red. I didn’t think I cared about that stuff, and I probably didn’t, but… Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.  _ Ari Mendoza.  _

When I could breathe again, I jumped off the porch and threw my arms around him. 

**“Ari! Look at you! Long hair! You look like Che Guevara without the mustache.”**

**“Nice,”** he said. 

Before my heart could stop beating again from hearing his voice, the dog he’d been watching ran up to us and barked at me a few times. 

**“You have to pet her. She hates to be ignored.”**

I plopped onto my knees and scratched behind her ears. She wiggled, and I petted her some more. I planted a kiss on her forehead, directly in the middle of her ears. My face hurt from smiling already.  **“Legs, Legs, so nice to meet you,”** I cooed, my voice muffled by her fur as she pressed her face into mine. 

I looked back up at Ari, who was still staring at me. I stood up from the ground, but Legs didn’t walk away. 

**“Where’d you get all those muscles, Ari?”** I grinned at him. I hadn’t stopped grinning, actually, so I guess I grinned even wider.

**“My dad’s old weights in the basement.”** He swept his gaze up and down the length of my body, and for the second time, I was glad I wasn’t a blusher.  **“How’d you grow so much?”**

**“Must have been the cold. Five eleven. I’m exactly as tall as my dad,”** I said proudly.  **“You’re shorter, but your hair makes you look taller.”**

He laughed, his clear and beautiful laugh. I melted into the grass. 

I wrapped him in another hug.  **“I missed you so much, Ari Mendoza.”**

He didn’t say anything, just leaned a little farther into my arms, so slightly he probably didn’t realize he’d done it. I pulled away. 

**“Are we going to be friends?”**

**“Don’t be crazy, Dante. We** **_are_ ** **friends.”**

**“Will we always be friends?”**

**“Always.”**

I exhaled in relief.  **“I’ll never lie to you about anything,”** I promised. 

**“I might lie to you.”**

We were laughing, and it felt like nothing else in the world had ever mattered,  _ would _ ever matter. We were laughing, and the past nine months of moping and anxiety lifted from my shoulders. I breathed easier.

**“Come and say hi to Mom and Dad,”** I said finally.  **“They’ll want to see you.”**

**“Can they come out? I have Legs.”**

I almost snorted. Was he reminding me of Legs? Like I’d forgotten about her? Please. Legs would’ve been my soulmate if not for Ari.  **“Legs can come in.”**

**“I don’t think your mom would like that.”**

**“If it’s your dog, the dog can come in. Trust me on that one.”** I dropped my voice and whispered,  **“my mom isn’t about to forget that incident in the rain.”**

**“That’s ancient history,”** he said, waving a hand. 

**“My mom is an elephant when it comes to remembering.”**

Just then, my dad came out of the house and saved us from arguing. He yelled to my mom and ran out to see Ari. 

Like I knew they would, my parents were thrilled to see him. They hugged him and held his hands, told him how much he’d grown and how handsome he looked and how much they liked his hair. He didn’t seem unhappy, exactly, but he looked like it was too much. At the same time, though, he looked like he was glad to see them. 

“I’m working at the Charcoaler,” he told my dad when he was asked about what he’d been doing lately. 

**“Work, Dante, there’s a thought.”**

**“I’m going to get a job, Dad. I really am.”**

I shook my head at his smirking face. I was a few days short of seventeen, and he was already trying to push me out the door. Well, he wasn’t really, but that’s what it felt like. 

My parents told Ari about Chicago, and his eyes started to glaze over. 

I cut in from where I was sitting on the ground petting Legs.  **“When do I get a ride in the truck?”**

**“How about after work? I get off at seven thirty,”** he told me. 

**“You have to teach me how to drive, Ari.”**

He hesitated, and I knew my mom was making eyes at him.  **“Aren’t dads supposed to do that?”** he asked carefully. 

**“My dad is the worst driver in the universe.”**

**“That’s not true,”** my dad protested.  **“Just the worst driver in El Paso.”**

We talked for a little longer, and then Ari had to leave. He said his parents were probably waiting for him to get back from his run. Between his laughter and his voice and the fact that he was  _ right there  _ in front of me, I was floating again as I walked with my dad back into the house, a few feet off the ground, stomach fluttering sweetly. My mom was talking to Ari alone about something. He’d probably tell me later. My stomach jumped at the fact that there was a later, and not just waiting for another letter. 

“You’re better already,” my dad noted as he closed the door behind us.

“What do you mean?” I knew what he meant. 

“Well, you were kind of in a rough spot in Chicago. Moody and quieter, I think. You’re getting back to your old self.” 

“Yeah, I think I am.” 

He hugged me with one arm. “I’m glad.” 

“Me, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dante is too gay for this shit. You can't just get buff all of a sudden, that's not allowed. You're giving him a heart attack, Ari. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	69. Remember the Rain - Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soledad and her sunshine. A happier alternative. Masculinity is for chumps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an added chapter and therefore doesn't not correspond to one from AADDTSOTU.

“Dante?” my dad called. 

“Coming!” I tossed my wet paintbrush into a cup of water and wiped my hands. I’d been working since Ari left, and my hands were starting to cramp. It was probably time for a break anyway. 

I sat down in the kitchen across from my parents. They were holding hands on top of the table. 

“You look happier than you usually do when we do this,” I accused. 

“We are,” my mom said simply. “Now, we have some news. This is very, very big. I’d like to just say it, and then I need to elaborate before you start talking, okay? Just let me get it out of the way.” 

“Sure.” 

“No, Dante, promise.” 

“I promise. No talking until Mom’s done,” I said teasingly. 

“Okay.” She looked at my dad. He squeezed her hand. “I’m pregnant.” 

I didn’t say anything. Not because I wasn’t allowed to, but because I didn’t have any words. I didn’t have thoughts either, or feelings. There was just nothing. 

“I’m pregnant,” she said again. “I have been for about a month now. We don’t know much about it, but we know that I’m very healthy. The doctor said that it’s very likely to be successful, even though I’m not as young as most people who have kids. We’re very excited, and we’d like to know what you think of this. If you aren’t happy, there’s not a whole lot we can do about it, but we’ll do our best to make it a good experience. Now, do you have any questions?” 

I shook my head, tears welling up. 

“Dante, are you okay?” my dad asked, sounding slightly panicked. 

I just let out a (decidedly unmasculine) squeal and got up to hug them. 

“I’m so happy,” I managed through shaky laughter. 

“Oh, honey,” my mom said. I was wrapped in my parents’ arms. 

“You’re gonna be a big brother,” my dad whispered. He was crying, too. 

Only my mother was without tears. My beautiful mother, who almost never cried, who always had an answer, who was better with emotions than anyone I knew but still never faltered when a situation required attention. My mother, who held us through our tears even though she felt everything so deeply. My mother, who was going to have a baby that would grow up in the most loving household possible. 

My mother. 

I cried and held her tighter. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I've mentioned how great Soledad is but it needs to be said more so: Soledad Quintana is amazing and I love her and you should too because she is the best. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	70. Remember the Rain - Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chrome, nudges, and pacing. Faraway looks and no, Dante, it's *definitely* not a date.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got like, not enough sleep last night... so hopefully this is coherent. We'll see. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari goes to Dante's house to pick him up.

After I stopped crying, I painted and paced, waiting for Ari to come pick me up. I almost changed my shirt, but then I reminded myself that it was just Ari and, no, this wasn’t a date or anything. Just Ari. My best friend. 

I was staring out the front window, and when he pulled up and honked, I threw open the door. 

**“That’s your truck! It’s amazing! It’s beautiful, Ari!”**

He got out and he had this big smile on his face. So big you couldn’t tell it was usually a sideways smile. I was pretty sure his smile could solve world hunger or something like that if he tried hard enough, it was that powerful. I wanted to make him smile like that all the time. He looked down at his shoes, still grinning. 

**“Mom! Dad! Come look at Ari’s truck!”** I yelled into the house before slamming the door and jumping off the porch. 

I walked a big circle around the truck, oohing and ahhing at its beauty. I knew absolutely nothing about trucks. It was big and red and shiny and very well taken care of. That was all I knew, but I loved it just the same.  **“Not a scratch,”** I marveled. 

**“That’s because I don’t drive it to school.”**

**“Real chrome rims,”** I noticed.  **“You’re a real Mexican, Ari.”**

He snorted.  **“So are you, you jerk.”**

I shook my head, a little sad.  **“Nah, I’ll never be a real Mexican.”**

The world-hunger-solving smile was gone, and he was furrowing his eyebrows at me. I opened my mouth to try and explain, or maybe put the smile back, but my parents came out of the house before I could. 

**“Great truck, Ari!”** my dad bellowed. He was a bellower when he was happy.  **“Now, that’s a classic.”**

My parents circled the truck as I had, hand in hand. I bent down to pet Legs, who I’d forgotten about in the excitement. 

**“It’s a beautiful truck, Ari,”** my mom said warmly. 

Ari smiled for a second without saying anything. Then threw his keys to my dad, who dropped my mom’s hand and caught the keys in both of his.  **“You can take your girlfriend out for a spin if you want.”**

My dad grinned. I was almost stunned.  _ Where was this Ari last summer? _

I sat down on the porch steps and watched my parents slide into the seat of the truck, my mom trying not to look too young and happy. But that’s what they were in that moment: young and happy. They didn’t have to act like parents just then. Maybe parents didn’t always have to act a certain way. Maybe they were waiting for us to grow older so they never had to. 

I was discovering the mysteries of my parents. 

Ari sat down beside me. Legs joined us and put her head in my lap. I tried not to count the inches between my fingers and Ari’s on the old wood of the porch. 

The engine rolled over, and I could see my dad’s smile.  **“Buy her a milkshake! Girls like it when you buy them something!”** I yelled, hands cupped around my mouth. 

Their laughter bursted from them, and they drove away. 

**“Your parents. Sometimes they’re like kids,”** Ari said. 

**“They’re happy,”** I told him, thinking of the baby. I turned to face him.  **“Your parents? Are they happy?”**

**“Mom and Dad, they’re not like your mom and dad. But, my mom adores my dad. I know that.”** He stopped to think for a moment. **“And I think my dad adores my mom too. He’s just not demonstrative.”**

I blinked.  **“Demonstrative. That’s not an Ari word.”**

**“You’re making fun. I’ve expanded my vocabulary.”** He leaned over and bumped our shoulders. I swayed with the motion (then used it as an excuse to move my hand closer to his).  **“I’m preparing for college.”**

**“How many new words a day?”**

**“You know, a few. I like the old words better. They’re like old friends.”**

I bumped our shoulders again. He grinned.  **“Demonstrative. Is that word ever going to be an old friend?”**

**“Maybe not.”**

**“You’re like your father, aren’t you?”** I asked. 

**“Yeah, I guess I am.”**

**“My mom struggles with that too, you know? He doesn't naturally display her feelings. That’s why she married my dad. That’s what I think. He drags it out of her, all those feelings she has.”**

**“Then it’s a good match,”** Ari observed. 

**“Yeah, it is. The funny thing is, I sometimes think my mother loves my father more than he loves her. Does that make sense?”**

He tilted his head to the side.  **“Yeah, I guess so.”** He paused and thought some more.  **“Maybe. Is love a contest?”**

**“What does that mean?”**

**“Maybe everyone loves differently. Maybe that’s all that matters.”**

Seriously. Who was this guy?  **“You do realize you’re talking, don’t you? I mean, you’re really talking.”**

**“I talk, Dante,”** he protested.  **“Don’t be a shit.”**

**“Sometimes you talk. Other times you just, I don’t know, you just avoid.”**

**“I’m doing the best I can.”**

**“I know.”** I did. I believed him.  **“Are there going to be rules for us, Ari?”**

I didn’t want to ask. I didn’t like his rules. But his rules were important to him, and he deserved to make them if he wanted. 

**“Rules?”**

**“You know what I’m talking about.”**

**“Yeah, I guess I do.”**

**“So what are the rules?”** I said. 

**“I don’t kiss boys.”**

I didn’t let my heart sink. I didn’t let myself be disappointed.  _ Not now.  _ **“Okay, so the first rule is: No trying to kiss Ari.”**

**“Yeah, that’s the first rule.”**

**“And I have a rule for you.”**

**“Okay, that’s fair.”** He turned sideways and faced me, crossing his legs and spreading his fingers in front of him on the deck. It was like he  _ wanted  _ me to take his hand. 

I took a deep breath.  **“No running away from Dante.”**

**“What does that mean?”**

**“I think you know what it means. Someday, someone will walk up to you and say: ‘Why are you hanging out with that queer?’ If you can’t stick by me as a friend, Ari, if you can’t do that, then maybe it’s better that you just, you know--it would kill me. You know it would kill me if you-”**

**“Then it’s a question of loyalty.”**

**“Yes.”** I exhaled. I was glad he stopped me before I started crying. 

He laughed. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I wasn’t expecting that.  **“I have a harder rule to follow.”**

I started laughing, too. 

I put my hand on his shoulder and left it there. He looked at it for a second, then back to my eyes.  **“Bullshit, Ari. You have the harder rule to follow?”** I repeated, shaking my head.  **“Buffalo shit. Coyote shit. All you have to do is be loyal to the most brilliant guy you’ve ever met--which is like walking barefoot through the park. I, on the other hand, have to refrain from kissing the greatest guy in the universe--which is like walking barefoot on hot coals,”** I said, letting my tongue run away from me and say whatever it wanted to. My hand slid off his shoulder and back to the porch.

**“I see you still have the barefoot thing going on.’**

**“I’ll always hate shoes.”**

**“We’ll play that game. That game you made up to beat the hell out of your tennis shoes.”**

**“It was fun, wasn’t it?”**

He got this faraway look on his face and nodded. I realized how final I’d made it sound. 

We were growing up. We couldn’t play in the streets anymore. 

A new phase in our lives.

I knew enough about the moon to know that it had phases. It changed a little bit every night. And I knew that all of them were beautiful. 

If we were lucky, all the phases of life would be beautiful, too. 

In that moment, it felt like they could be. Sitting on my porch, with the love of my life just a few inches away and Legs’ head in my lap, it felt like beauty was the only thing that could come next. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wish he could be right :(
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) end email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	71. Remember the Rain - Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Desert silence, constellations, and disbelief. Losing yourself in Ari's eyes and Legs is, in fact, the Best Girl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have two remaining brain cells and neither of them are doing anything but loving Dante Quintana.
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari and Dante drive out to the desert and talk.

Ari drove us out to the desert. We climbed out and then onto the truck bed, and laid back to look at the sky. The stars were coming out, and you could just barely see them. 

**“Next time we’ll bring my telescope,”** I told him, reveling in the idea of the dozens of next times we were going to have that summer. 

**“Good idea.”**

Legs started sniffing around, and she wandered pretty far away. Ari shouted her name, and she immediately perked up. She ran back and hopped up next to us, settling in the space between our bodies. 

**“I love Legs,”** I said, stroking her head. She was soft there. She was soft everywhere. I really did love her. 

**“She loves you back.”**

My brain bent his words into “I love you, too,” and I wondered what it would feel like if he actually said that to me.

I shook away the thoughts and looked back up.  **“See Ursa Major?”** I asked, pointing to it in the sky. 

**“No.”**

**“Over there.”** I indicated a little more clearly. 

**“Yes. Yes, I see it.”**

**“It’s so amazing.”**

**“Yes, it** **_is_ ** **amazing.”**

We just looked for a while without talking. 

**“Ari?”**

**“Yeah?”**

**“Guess what?”**

**“What?”**

**“My mother’s pregnant.”** I hadn’t said it out loud before, and it felt sweet on my tongue. 

**“What?”**

**“My mom’s going to have a baby,”** I said. It felt like I was still discovering it myself.  **“Can you believe that?”**

**“No shit.”**

**“Chicago was cold and my parents found a way to keep warm.”**

He cracked up.

**“Do you think parents ever outgrow sex?”**

**“I don’t know. I don’t think it’s something you outgrow, is it? What do I know, I’m just waiting to grow into it.”**

**“Me too.”**

Neither of us said anything. I squinted at the stars above us, looking for constellations. 

**“Wow, Dante. You’re going to be a big brother.”** He was whispering, his voice thick with amazement. 

**“Yeah, a really big brother. Does that make you think of--what was your brother’s name?”**

**“Bernardo.”**

**“Does that make you think of him?”** I asked. 

**“Everything makes me think of him,”** he said quietly.  **“Sometimes, when I’m driving along in my pickup, I think of him and I wonder if he liked trucks and I wonder what he’s like and I wish I knew him and--I don’t know--I just can’t let it go. I mean, it’s not as if I ever really knew him. So why does it matter so much?”**

**“If it matters, then it matters,”** I said. I sounded like my mom, but I also sounded like me. We were the same sometimes in my head. 

Ari didn’t respond. 

**“Are you rolling your eyes?”**

**“Yeah, I guess.”**

**“I think you should confront your parents. You should just sit them down and make them tell you. Make them be adults.”**

**“You can’t make anyone be an adult. Especially an adult.”** I laughed so hard my eyes watered. Legs started barking at us, which made us laugh even harder. 

**“You know,”** I wheezed, trying to force my breath to normal so I could speak,  **“I need to take my own advice.”** I coughed and stopped laughing.  **“I hope to God that my mother has a boy. And he better like girls. Because if he doesn’t, I’ll kill him.”**

I don’t even know where that came from. I hadn’t even thought of it until that moment. Or maybe I had, but I hadn’t thought it mattered to me. We laughed again, though, and I was glad we were laughing. Legs barked at us for the second time. 

We sat there trying to catch our breath for a long time. We’d stop laughing, and then I’d start laughing again, so he would, too, and then we’d get calm and then he’d start laughing… 

When we finally let the silence of the desert settle around us again, I said the thing I’d been thinking about for months. Finally, I said it out loud. 

**“I have to tell them, Ari.”**

**“Why?”**

Of course he didn’t understand right away. Why had I expected him to?  **“Because I have to.”**

**“But what if you fall in love with a girl?”**

**“That’s not going to happen, Ari.”** I’d asked my bedroom ceiling in Chicago that same question, night after night, and I knew. I just knew, inside me, that it could never be like that. 

**“They’ll always love you, Dante.”**

I cried, then. I knew he hated it, but I cried. I had to. 

How could he just say that? Like he knew for sure? Like love wasn’t something I had to earn? Love didn’t come free. If I was a disappointment, things could never be the same. I thought that liking boys was about as disappointing as it could get, so I wasn’t in a position to think they could love me after they knew the truth. 

**“Dante, can’t you see how much they love you?”** Ari whispered to me in the dark. 

**“I’m going to disappoint them,”** I blubbered.  **“Just like I’ve disappointed you.”**

**“You haven’t disappointed me, Dante.”**

**“You’re just saying that because I’m crying,”** I accused wetly. 

**“No, Dante.”** He sat up and slid himself to the end of the truck bed. He dangled his legs off the end of the tailgate. I sat up, and our eyes met. His were warm and soft. I almost never got to see them like that. 

**“Don’t cry, Dante. I’m not disappointed.”**

I just nodded and wiped my nose on my sleeve.

On the drive back, I pulled myself together. We listened to a cassette and sang along terribly. He pulled into a drive-in, and we bought root beers. 

**“So what are you going to do this summer?”** Ari asked me. 

**“Well, I’m going to practice with the Cathedral swim team and I’m going to work on some paintings and I’m going to get a job,”** I listed. 

**“Really,”** he said, raising his eyebrows and squinting sarcastically.  **“You’re going to get a job.”**

**“God, you sound like my dad.”**

He drove me back home. I kissed Legs and wanted to kiss Ari, as usual. I said goodbye instead and hopped out onto the sidewalk in front of the house.

I was breathing easier. He wasn’t disappointed in me. He didn’t hate me, I knew that for sure. He thought my parents would love me no matter what. 

And I tried my very hardest to believe him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ari saying "but what if you fall in love with a girl" just BREAKS me because you just know that he's asking for himself, even if he doesn't realize it. Little Ari, just thinking that he can't really be gay or ever talk about it or ever think about it ever ever ever because what if it's not true?? no it cannot be true?? and idk I just cry so much over this book and it hurts. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @


	72. Remember the Rain - Chapter Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Breathlessness, paintbrushes, and a wrinkled minute.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is The Chapter, guys. I have been waiting for this chapter for, like, way too long. This is the chapter that made me want to write this. I kind of hate it, and I know it'll never live up to the book, but I waited for SO long. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Dante has an interesting idea.

Ari and I were in my bedroom one night. He was sitting in my chair reading while I painted, keeping the easel covered and out of his line of vision. 

**“Can I see?”** he asked. He already knew the answer. 

**“No.”**

**“When you finish?”**

**“When I finish.”**

I put down my brush and wiped my hands. I fell over onto my bed. I sank into a strange daydream that I’d had many times before. 

**“Read any good books of poems lately?”** he asked. 

**“No, not really.”**

**“Where are you, Dante?”**

**“Here.”** I pushed myself up to sitting and considered him for a moment.  **“I was thinking about the kissing thing.”**

**“Oh.”** He looked like he had no clue what I was going to say next, but he knew he wasn’t going to like it. 

**“I mean, how do you know that you don’t like kissing boys if you’ve never kissed one?”** I asked, trying not to sound too leading. The picture of nonchalance. 

**“I think you just know, Dante.”**

**“Well, have you ever?”**

**“You know I haven’t. Have you?”**

**“No.”**

**“Well, maybe you don’t really like kissing guys. Maybe you just think you do.”**

**“I think we should try an experiment,”** I said quickly, without letting myself think about it. 

**“I know what you’re going to say,”** he sighed,  **“and the answer is no.”**

**“You’re my best friend, right?”**

**“Yes. But right now, I’m really regretting it.”**

**“Let’s just try it.”**

**“No.”**

**“I won’t tell anyone,”** I promised.  **“C’mon.”**

**“No.”**

**“Look, it’s just a kiss. You know. And then we’ll both know.”**

**“We already do know.”** I mean, he had a point. But I wasn’t giving up when I was this close. 

**“We won’t really know until we actually do it.”**

**“No.”**

**"Ari, please.”**

**“Dante.”**

**“Stand up,”** I said. 

And he did. 

Miraculously, he was standing. And then so was I. And we were closer than we were before. 

**“Close your eyes,”** I told him. 

His eyelids fluttered shut. 

I slid my hand into his. I leaned forward. 

And time stopped. 

I was kissing him, and he was kissing me. The world stopped spinning. Everything stopped. 

I was made for this moment. I was made to be there, right then, kissing him like my life depended on it. I was made to be sharing air with this boy in this moment. 

My lips parted, and then so did his, and then something lit on fire inside me. I deepened it, this thing that was tethering me to the earth. Everything had stopped for this. Everything was all just leading up to this exact moment. I was on fire, and I was flying, and electricity was coursing through my veins, and for once I felt whole, like I was real and true and meant for a life full of doing this and only this and-

He stepped back. 

I was breathing a little hard, shocked from the sudden loss.

**“Well?”**

**“Didn’t work for me.”**

The breath left my body, and so did my heart. I would replay that sentence on repeat through my brain for weeks. 

**“Nothing?”**

**“Nope.”**

**“Okay,”** I said. I hoped it sounded real.  **“It sure worked for me.”**

**“Yeah. I think I get that, Dante.”**

**“So, well, that’s over with then, huh?”**

**“Yeah.”**

**“Are you mad at me?”** I asked.

**“A little,”** he said. 

I sat down. It wasn’t fair to feel like this. It wasn’t fair to want more when I knew I couldn’t have it, when I knew he wasn’t going to give it. 

**“I’m more mad at myself,”** he amended.  **“I always let you talk me into things. It’s not your fault.”**

**“Yeah.”**

**“Don’t cry, okay?”**

**“Okay.”**

**“You’re crying.”**

**“I’m not,”** I said, voice breaking. 

**“Okay.”**

**“Okay,”** I whispered. 

_ How could I ever be okay? _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hear that screaming in the distance? Don't worry, it's just me.
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/%22) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	73. Remember the Rain - Chapter Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Proper motivation, being a shitty friend, and sulking. Discovering the secrets of the universe aren't always pleasant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of stuff happens in this chapter, so I'll put a short recap in the end notes because it's too much to remember at once. Maybe it's just me, but I think it's too much, so. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari and Dante are okay, because they need to be. Summer starts as normal as summer can be. Ari feels some things, and he goes to Dante.

The sulking set in about as quickly as you’d expect. I was in my bedroom most of the day. I think I cried more in the first few days after the kiss than I’d cried about anything. It all blurred together. I don’t remember much about those few days. 

“Dante?” my mom said the day after it happened, knocking on my door. 

“Go away.” 

“Are you okay?” 

“No. Leave me alone.” 

My dad came later. “Did you and Ari have a fight?” 

“Kind of.” 

“Come out here, let’s talk.” 

“I don’t want to.” 

“You’ll feel better, Dante.”

“No.” 

After that, my parents let me do my thing. I’m sure they called Lilly and Jaime. I’m sure I didn’t care. 

How could I have done that? It was wrong, I knew it even as I asked to kiss him. I knew the entire time that I wasn’t doing the right thing, and I did it anyway. Did that make me a terrible person? Maybe. It at least made me a really shitty friend. 

On the fourth day, I was laying in bed after breakfast, getting ready to sink into another day of waiting for the sun to go down. 

“Dante!” 

“I told you I don’t want to talk, Mom.” 

“Phone for you!” 

I flew down the stairs and took it out of her hands. 

“Hey,” I said, trying not to sound out of breath. 

**“You want to go running in the morning?”**

I felt the tension leave my body.  **“What time?”**

**“Six thirty.”**

**“Okay.”**

So, I woke up at the ungodly hour of six thirty in the morning (in the morning! Who does that?) and walked to Ari’s house. 

We ran for awhile. I could tell I was slowing him down, but I could tell that he didn’t mind. I wasn’t the best runner, but I was okay. Swimming probably helped some, with the lungs and whatnot. We talked while we ran, like it was normal. Pretending like it was normal. 

He had Legs with us, so we went to the park and threw the Frisbee for her, which she’d run after and then bring back, tongue lolling and flopping around as she bounced along in the grass. 

I was so relieved, I could’ve cried. 

**“Thanks for calling,”** I told him.  **“I thought maybe you wouldn’t call anymore.”**

And everything was okay. 

I got a job! My dad had shown me where the library was and told me to tell anyone who asked that I was his son. When I walked home, I saw a drugstore on the way. I applied there, and there was an interview, and then, well, I was in. 

“See, Dad?” I was smirking as I held up my new work shirt and name tag. 

“Very good, Dante. I’m impressed.” 

“Surprised?” 

“Yes.” 

“Hey!” 

“No, I’m not surprised. I’m proud of you,” he said, and he kissed me on the cheek. 

I wondered how proud he’d be when he found out I was gay. I wondered where all that pride would go. 

Ari and I would talk about nothing on the phone when we called each other, which was most days. There was a lot of nothing to talk about. I swam and worked and read and painted, and it was all nothing. 

I missed the days of everything. But the days of nothing weren’t as bad as they seemed. 

I didn’t see Ari often, even though we called. We did this dance around each other, avoiding. The kiss lingered in my mouth and it hung between us more heavily than anything had before.

The funny thing was, I would’ve done it again in a heartbeat. To feel the press-slide-press of lips against lips, the heat from him seeping into me and giving it right back. To feel what it had felt like to fly and burn and stop time. 

All the uncertainty of the past weeks. All of it, for seconds of kissing Ari. There was no regret inside me. I only wished it hadn’t made him uncomfortable. That was all.

Ari called me one day, asking if I wanted to work at the food bank with him on Saturdays. His mom had asked him, and it sounded like he didn’t feel like going alone. 

I didn’t care about the reason. 

**“Sure. What are we supposed to do?”**

**“I’m sure my mom will train us.”**

Soon after that, Ari drove to my house after he got off work. I was watching as he pulled up. He was driving a little faster that day. When I opened the door, he was breathing hard. 

**“Want to get drunk?”**

He had this look in his eyes. This look about him. 

**“Sure.”**

He went home to change. 

“Dad?”

“Hmm?” 

“Ari’s coming soon.” 

“Okay. You can go wherever, just be home by ten.” 

“No. Well, yes, but can you talk to him?” 

He must’ve seen how important it was. He took my mom’s hand and they went outside.

I watched from the window when his truck pulled up. They walked up to his truck and talked to him.

When I couldn’t stand it anymore, I went out. 

He was crying. That’s how I knew, in the end. He didn’t have tears. Ari didn’t cry. That wasn’t who he was. 

I smiled at him, and then at my parents. They gave me these looks, like I was the sweetest boy in the universe. 

**“Let’s go,”** I said to Ari. 

He was still crying as he drove. I watched him, and he didn’t say anything or look back at me. He just drove, like he didn’t have anything else left he could do. 

He parked and hopped out into the desert, then slammed his door harder than he should have. Even in tears and weakness, he was strong. Was it anger? He hadn’t said enough for me to know. He hadn’t said anything. I thought that anger must’ve been part of it.

I was next to him in an instant. 

**“Shit!”** he said. His voice was hoarse and scalding hot.  **“I forgot about the beer.”**

**“We don’t need the beer,”** I whispered.

**“We need the beer!”** He was shouting now, and I knew, again, that it was bad this time.  **“We need the fucking beer, Dante!”**

And he was sobbing. And my arms were open, and he was crashing into them and breaking, and I was holding him. And we were sinking down onto the ground, and I was holding him and rocking him back and forth. And his face was in my chest and my face was in his hair, and my shirt was getting wet and I didn’t even think about it. And he was so small, and I was so small, but he was smaller so I was holding him and holding him because that was the only thing I could do. 

And feeling someone’s pain without being able to ease it was as painful as feeling it yourself. 

If that was a secret of the universe, I didn’t fucking appreciate it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so here's what just happened: They're okay! The kiss thing doesn't tear them apart, thank God. And then Dante gets a job at the drug store. He and Ari talk on the phone a lot, but they don't see each other very often because it's still kind of awkward. At least they're okay, though. Ari breaks down. 
> 
> I don't know if that was helpful, but it was helpful for me. I'm tired. I'm always tired. But I'm tired and that was helpful. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @


	74. Remember the Rain - Chapter Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bubble gum, name tags, and passive-aggressive customers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enter: Gina and Susie, lesbian icons. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Lilly's away visiting Ophelia. Ari is left alone to wonder about his body and his aunt.

Work was interesting. I didn’t hate it, but it was kind of slow sometimes. Not everybody wanted to make conversation while they checked out, so people were kind of passive-aggressive when I got chatty. And I was chatty a lot. 

There was another guy who worked most of the same shifts as me. He’d worked there the previous summer, too. 

“I’m Daniel,” he said.

“I can see that,” I said back, pointing to his name tag. 

He laughed. “I know. And you’re Dante.” 

“Yes, I’m Dante.” 

We talked sometimes. I didn’t know what to make of him. 

One day, two girls walked in. They were holding hands. I didn’t know what to think about that, but it was normal for girls to touch each other. It was more than likely they were just friends. 

They put a pile of nail polish bottles and lip gloss on the counter when they were finished. The one on my left reached down to the rack below her and added a package of bubble gum. 

The girl on my right nudged her. 

“Hey, you’re name’s Dante?” 

I was getting tired of this. Just read the goddamn name tag and move on. “Yep.”

The girls looked at each other. “Do you know Ari Mendoza? You know, kind of short, long hair, super hot?”

I smiled. “He’s my best friend.” 

They looked at each other again. “No way,” one of them said. 

“I’m sorry, who are you?” I asked. 

“I’m Gina,” Gina said. “And this is Susie.” 

“Hi,” Susie said. She was quieter, and she had a nice smile. 

“Hi. So you know Ari?” 

“Yeah,” Gina said. “We’ve known him since we were little.” 

“Oh, cool.” 

“He said that there was an accident last summer,” Susie said. 

“He said he saved your life,” Gina added. 

“He did. I was standing in the street, not paying attention. A car came by, and then Ari pushed me out of the way. I’m sure you saw the casts. I broke my arm, but he had it way worse.” 

Gina looked at Susie, then back at me. “He told the truth.” 

I laughed. “I’m sure you didn’t believe him. It sounds fake.” 

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Susie said. Her eyes were shining with tears. An easy crier, I thought. I could relate. 

“Me, too.” 

“You know,” Gina said, “you two are really different.” 

“We are.” 

“I can’t believe it. He’s so sullen, and you’re so… sunny, or something.” 

I laughed again. I liked these girls. “Does Ari talk to you guys a lot? He’s never mentioned you.” 

“That makes sense,” Susie told me. “We talk at school. He’s always seemed sort of annoyed by us, but we really care about him. He’s really sad most of the time. He didn’t tell us about you, either. I don’t know where his head’s at most of the time.”

“Oh. Well, neither do I, and we talk everyday.” 

Gina barked a laugh. “That’s hard to imagine. He’s not a talker.” 

“I do a lot of the talking,” I admitted. “I can see why he lets you guys hang around. He would’ve shaken you off years ago if he didn’t like you, you know.” 

“Oh, we’re very persistent,” Gina assured me with a smile. 

“I’m sure you are.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We all know they're dating. Or at least, we all want them to be dating. It's just a fact. I refuse to believe I'm deviating from canon by making them hold hands. That's a thing girls do. Let them hold hands! 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	75. Remember the Rain - Chapter Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not understanding, more furrowed eyebrows, and generalization. Stupid, stupid words and a grumpiness onset.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're back to angst! yAyYy
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari finds out that Dante talked to the girls. He gets mad. The girls come talk to him after work, and he tells them to fuck off. But slightly nicer.

**“Are you wearing shoes?”**

I turned around. Ari stood there on the other side of the counter, grinning at me. I grinned back. 

**“I was just thinking of you,”** I said. 

**“Yeah?”**

**“Some girls came in a little while ago.”**

He stopped smiling and furrowed his eyebrows instead.  **“Girls?”**

**“They knew you. We got to talking.”**

**“Gina and Susie,”** he said. He didn’t sound happy. 

**“Yeah,”** I said, choosing to ignore his sudden onset of grumpiness.  **“They’re nice. Pretty, too. They go to school with you.”**

**“Yeah, they’re nice and pretty. And pushy, too.”**

I ignored him again.  **“They looked at my name tag. And then they looked at each other. And then one of them asked me if I knew you. I thought that it was a funny question to ask.”**

**“What did you tell them?”** he asked. 

**“I told them yeah. I said you were my best friend.”**

**“You told them that?”** He looked mad. I didn’t like this conversation anymore. 

**“You are** **_my_ ** **best friend.”**

**“Did they ask you anything else?”**

**“Yeah, they asked if I knew anything about an accident and you breaking your legs,”** I told him. 

**“I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it!”**

**“What?”**

**“Did you tell them?”** he demanded. 

**“Of course I told them.”** _Why wouldn’t I have told them?_ _What kind of a question is that?_

**“You told them?”**

**“Why are you getting mad?”**

**“You told them about what happened?”** he asked again. I resisted the urge to say something snarky about changing my mind after the third time he asked. 

**“Of course I did.”**

**“There’s a rule, Dante.”**

**“You’re mad?”** I couldn’t believe this.  **“You’re mad at me?”**

**“The rule was we weren’t supposed to talk about the accident,”** he said. His voice was getting a little louder as he spoke. I wished it wouldn’t, and he would apologize, and we’d have a civil conversation. It didn’t look like that was going to happen. My brain was already kicking into debate-mode. 

**“Wrong. The rule was we weren’t supposed to talk about the accident with each other. The rule doesn’t apply to anyone else.”**

A man shifted and cleared his throat. I looked up and noticed a line of people starting to grow behind Ari. 

**“I have to get back to work,”** I sighed. I didn’t get it. 

He shook his head and stalked away, like he had a good reason to be mad at me. Or any damned reason at all. I gave the man who stepped up my biggest fake smile and told him I was sorry for the wait. 

Later, I dialed the Charcoaler. I knew he was at work, but I needed to know what was going on. 

“Hello, you’ve reached the Charcoaler of El Paso. How can I help you?” a man’s voice on the line said. 

“Hi, sorry. I’m not ordering. My friend works there, and there’s something important. Personal. Uh, can you put him on?” 

The man sighed. “Sure. Which one is he?” 

“Ari.” 

“Oh, him. Give me one second.”

He’d taken the phone away from his ear, obviously, but I could still hear as he shouted, “Ari! Phone for you! It’s a guy. He said it’s important. No, he’s still on the line. Well, you’re already wasting time, so you better answer it. Come on.” 

There was a crackling sound, and he had the phone. “Dante?” 

“Ari.” 

“What do you need?”

I wanted to tell him that I needed lots of things, wanted lots of things. I wanted to ask him if he was ashamed of me or if he hated me or if he wished he didn’t know me. I wanted to ask him if he regretted promising to be my friend. I wanted to assure him that he could stop talking to me if he wanted, could leave me alone any time. It would break me, sure, but as long as he was happy. 

**“Why are you mad?”** I asked instead. 

**“I just don’t like other people to know.”**

_ What does that mean?  _ **“I don’t get you, Ari.”** I put down the phone instead of saying something stupid. 

Should I have not said anything to Gina and Susie? Should I have known that Ari would be angry about this? He always seemed vaguely angry at something. All the time. I should’ve known. I should’ve thought of this, thought of anything but myself. I should have-

No. I told myself to stop. There were two girls who came in when I was at work. They asked if I knew a boy, and I truthfully told them that he was my best friend. They asked if I knew anything about a car accident involving the aforementioned boy, and I said yes. It wasn’t a difficult conversation to navigate. I didn’t bring any of it up. I didn’t say something particularly embarrassing. I was just answering questions some nice girls asked me. 

He was ashamed of me in some ways, I thought. Even if he wouldn’t come out and say it. He was ashamed and he didn’t want his friends to know that I thought he was my best friend. 

I felt like I was worth being ashamed of, in general. I just wanted to know what I had done to make him feel that way. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always feel like Ari's angsty phase was hard for Dante in more ways than one. He had enough self-esteem to make it through but it was still hard, because he wasn't perfectly secure in his sexuality or his identity in regards to being Mexican-American, and he was also an anxious overthinker. So, lots of stuff. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	76. Remember the Rain - Chapter Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blushers, clenched jaws, and permanent discontentment. Following impulse and Soledad gets to do all the work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari goes to Dante's house, where they argue some more. Then he goes home and (awkwardly) has dinner with his dad. The dads go bowling, and Ari goes to Dante's house to pick him up.

Ari drove to my house when he got off work. I was sitting on the porch. He got out of his truck and sat down next to me. 

**“I don’t understand why you’re so upset,”** I said, in lieu of a hello. 

**“Why did you tell Gina and Susie about the whole thing?”**

**“What’s with you, Ari?”**

**“We agreed not to talk about it,”** he said, clenching his jaw and not meeting my gaze. 

**“I don’t get you.”**

**“I don’t get me either.”**

He just got up and walked away.  **“I gotta go.”** I knew that he had absolutely no reason to. His mom was gone, and he’d said he wasn’t really looking forward to spending time alone with his dad. He got in his truck. I followed him and stood by the driver’s seat window. 

**“Do you wish you hadn’t saved my life?”** I asked, voice shaking. I was terrified of the answer, but I met his gaze.  **“Is that it? Do you wish I was dead?”**

**“Of course not,”** he whispered. I thought of the kiss, for some reason. (That was all I ever did.)

I stared at him. That was all I was getting from him, apparently. No apology. No explanation. He wouldn’t even look at me. 

**“You’re the most inscrutable guy in the universe,”** I said as he reached over and started the truck. 

**“Yeah,”** he spat back.  **“I guess I am.”**

I stepped back. He drove away. 

I didn’t know what to make of any of this. Where was the Ari who’d started talking to me like he never had before? Where was the Ari who was content to listen to me ramble and laugh at my shitty jokes? Where was the Ari who would talk maybe half as much as I would, but say the things he did with twice as much meaning? Where was the Ari who would ask to see my paintings every time, even though he knew I wouldn’t let him until I was finished? 

He was angry. He’d always been discontented, I think. He’d been constantly on the verge of being mad during the past weeks, residing on the border between irritation and anger for reasons I did not know. 

But now, he was angry-angry. At me. When I had done nothing wrong. 

I ate dinner with my parents. 

“I’m going bowling with Jaime tonight,” my dad said. 

“Okay.” 

“Lilly’s still in Tucson.” 

“I know.” 

“I know you know.” 

“Are you doing alright?” my mom asked.

“Yup,” I lied. 

After we were done eating, the phone rang. “It’s Ari.” 

“Hi, Ari.” 

**“Our dads are going bowling tonight.”**

**“I know,”** I said. 

**“My dad wanted to know if we wanted to go.”**

I got an idea.  **“Tell him no.”**

I walked to work. 

I didn’t have a shift, but I knew Daniel did. Business was slow. 

“Hi, Daniel,” I said. 

He smiled. “Hey, Dante. Need something?” 

“No, just stopped by to say hi.” 

“Oh,” he said. He blushed. He was a blusher. “Well, hi.” 

“Hi,” I said back. I grinned at him, and he went even redder. 

I knew it. I’d known for a while. He liked me. I didn’t like him, not like that. 

I sure could use it, though. 

“How’s it going?” I asked. 

“Okay. Not too busy.” 

“Nice.” 

“Yeah.” 

I didn’t really know what to say, which was rare for me. I didn’t know anything about the guy. 

On impulse, I reached over the counter and pushed a strand of his hair behind his ear. His blush returned, redder than I’d ever seen someone before. “It’s getting long,” I said quietly. 

He just nodded. 

“I like it like that.” 

“Thanks.” 

“Well, I gotta go…” 

“You sure you don’t need anything?” he asked shyly. 

“Hmm…” I put an elbow on the counter and rested my chin on my hand. He was staring at my mouth, so I bit my bottom lip and tilted my head. He blushed again. Perfect.“Well, actually, I could use a favor.”

I was sitting on the porch with my mom when Ari drove up. He and Legs jumped out of the truck. He waved to me, then walked up the steps and kissed my mom on the cheek. She smiled. 

**“Dante’s making a list of names for his baby brother,”** she told Ari. 

He turned to me.  **“What if it’s a girl?”**

**“It’ll be a boy.”** I looked back down at the paper with my loopy handwriting.  **“I like Diego. I like Joaquin. I like Javier. Rafael. I like Maximiliano.”**

**“Those names sound pretty Mexican,”** he said, like it was a unique observation. Like that wasn’t the entire point. 

**“Yeah, well, I’m shying away from ancient classical names,”** I told him.  **“And besides, if he has a Mexican name, then maybe he’ll** **_feel_ ** **more Mexican.”**

I knew my mom was making that face she made sometimes. Ari was looking at her. 

**“What about Sam?”** Ari said.

**“Sam’s okay.”**

**“Does the mother get a say?”** my mom cut in, laughing. 

**“No.”** I shook my head at her.  **“The mother just gets to do all the work.”**

She kissed me, smiling softly into my forehead.  **“So you two are going stargazing?”** she asked Ari. 

**“Yeah, stargazing with the naked eye. No telescopes. And it’s us three,”** he said.  **“You forgot Legs.”**

**“Nope. Legs is staying with me. I feel like some company.”**

I felt like she knew something. I didn’t know why I felt like that. 

**“Okay. If you want,”** Ari said. 

**“She’s a wonderful dog.”**

**“Yeah, she is. So you like dogs now?”**

**“I like Legs,”** my mom told him.  **“She’s sweet.”**

**“Yeah. Sweet.”** He said it like it was his first time saying the word, enunciating it softly, almost under his breath. It made me smile. And, God, I loved him.

We climbed into Ari’s truck and shut the door. Legs stayed with my mom without being told. She was the best dog. 

**“Promise you’ll be careful,”** my mom shouted. 

**“I promise,”** Ari shouted back. 

**“Remember the rain.”**

As if we could forget. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dante: *is sweet and wholesome and pure*  
> Also Dante: *flirts to get drugs*
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	77. Remember the Rain - Chapter Eleven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laughing too hard, anticipation, and bad boys. The polarization of desert storms and the many perks of being persuasive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Take a shot every time I say a form of the word "laugh" (spoiler alert: Please Don't). 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: It's all fixed then Ari and Dante go to the desert. They get high and do some stupid things, then go out for menudo. They go home.

Ari drove us out to the desert. Once we were out of town, I took out the joints and held them up with a flourish. 

He grinned, so I grinned. We laughed. 

**“You’re a bad boy,”** he said appreciatively. 

**“You’re a bad boy too.”**

**“Just what we always wanted to be.”**

**“If our parents knew.”**

**“If our parents knew.”**

We cracked up. Ari kept driving. 

**“I’ve never done this,”** he told me. 

**“It’s not hard to learn.”**

**“Where’d you score this?”** he asked. 

**“Daniel. This guy I work with.”** I paused, wondering if I should say something. We were about to get high in the desert, so I was pretty sure it didn’t really matter at this point.  **“I think he likes me.”**

**“Does he want to kiss you?”** He sounded too casual. I squinted. 

**“I think so.”**

**“Do you want to kiss him back?”**

**“Not sure.”** _ Not if he’s not you, Ari. It’s nobody but you.  _

**“But you talked him into giving you some pot, didn’t you?”**

I smiled and looked down at the joints in my hand. I felt bad, using Daniel’s feelings like that. I knew what it felt like to want someone. Then again, I was in love, and Daniel had a stupid crush on me (on  _ me,  _ of all people). It wasn’t the same. 

I still felt bad, though. 

**“You like talking people into things, don’t you?”** Ari teased. 

**“I’m not going to answer that.”**

Ari pulled into our spot, and the air was thick with the anticipation of rain. I still wasn’t used to the way the rain came and went in the desert. It was different in California and in Chicago. I knew why Ari loved it so much. 

We got out and sat on the tailgate of the truck. I lit one of the joints and took a hit, filling my lungs and holding in the smoke before exhaling and passing it to Ari. He took a hit too, and he looked like he needed to cough. When he let the smoke out, he kind of wheezed a little bit, just sort of exhaled too long. That was what people did when they were trying not to cough, I remember thinking. 

We passed the joint between us until it was finished, and it got easier and easier to pretend my fingers didn’t feel like they were on fire every time his brushed mine as we passed the joint to each other. 

I kept looking at him, and he kept looking at me, and we were laughing. 

The thunder began, and the clouds congregated in an angry-looking cluster above us. We scrambled into the truck, weak with laughter, just before it started really pouring. 

**“It’s crazy,”** Ari said between fits of giggles.  **“It’s so crazy.”**

**“Crazy,”** I agreed. I had to speak louder over the pounding of rain drops on the truck.  **“Crazy, crazy, crazy.”**

**“God, crazy.”**

We laughed and laughed and listened to the rain. God, I loved him. I loved how he loved the rain. I loved him, I loved him. I laughed. 

**“Let’s go out there,”** I said breathlessly.  **“Let’s go out in the rain.”**

I peeled off all my clothes, then put my tennis shoes back on. Ironic, I know, but necessary. Ari laughed at me, and I laughed at how crazy he looked, doubled over and wheezing. 

**“Wait,”** he said. He took off all his clothes, too, and then put his tennis shoes on. I  _ most certainly was not looking  _ at his naked body. Absolutely not. 

**“Ready?”** he asked through his laughter. 

**“Ready.”**

We opened our doors at the same time and hopped to the ground. 

The rain was freezing. I started shivering as it soaked me. 

**“Shit!”** Ari shouted. 

**“Shit!”** I screamed back. 

“ **We’re fucking crazy!”**

**“Yeah, yeah!”**

He started running in circles around the truck, and I followed. Or maybe I started and he followed. No, he was faster than me. But maybe he wasn’t going as fast as he could. Maybe I was chasing him, or maybe he was chasing me. I don’t know. But we just ran and ran until I was breathing so hard, I thought I would choke on my own lungs if I went any farther. 

We slammed the truck doors and laughed some more, heaving and trying desperately to breathe. 

The rain stopped. It cut off, and it was gone. That was how it was in the desert. 

Ari opened his door and stepped out. I followed. 

He reached his arms to the sky and his eyes fluttered shut. He was the most beautiful boy in the universe. 

And I was standing right next to him, a breath away. 

I wanted to kiss him. I always did. 

I thought of his face, and how he didn’t call me for three days. I thought of moping around the house and spending days in my bedroom without leaving for anything but the bathroom and food. 

I didn’t kiss him. 

**“I’m starving,”** I said. 

**“Me too.”**

We pulled our clothes on, the fabric sticking to our damp skin. He drove us back towards home. 

**“What should we eat?”**

**“Menudo,”** I said. 

**“You like menudo.”**

**“Yeah.”**

**“I think that makes you a real Mexican.”**

I turned to him.  **“Do real Mexicans like to kiss boys?”** Because I liked to kiss boys. I  _ really  _ liked to kiss boys. Especially if the boy was Ari. I could live off of kissing boys alone. 

He smiled.  **“I don’t think liking boys is an American invention.”**

**“You could be right.”** I hated it when he was right, but I loved how he smirked when I was wrong. 

**“Yeah, I could be. How about Chico’s Tacos?”**

**“They don’t have menudo.”**

**“Okay, how about the Good Luck Cafe on Alameda?”**

**“My dad loves that place,”** I said. 

**“Mine too. They’re bowling.”**

**“They’re bowling.”**

And we laughed, like always. 

We really were starving. Both of us had two bowls of menudo and a plate of enchiladas. I wasn’t a huge eater, not like some boys our age, but I could really tear into some menudo after I was high, apparently. 

**“Are my eyes red?”** I asked Ari when we were done. I was always paranoid about that. I didn’t want my mom to figure it out. 

**“No,”** he said. 

**“Guess we can go home.”**

**“Yeah.”**

**“I can’t believe we did that,”** I whispered, leaning closer to him across the table. 

**“Me neither.”**

**“But it was fun,”** I said.

**“God. It was fantastic.”**

When I got home, my mom was waiting on the couch. 

“It’s late.” 

“I know. I’m sorry.” 

She got up and walked over to me. “What was keeping you?” 

“The storm,” I said. “We couldn’t see any stars because of the clouds. So we sat in the truck for a while. Talked about some things. Then we got hungry. So we went for menudo. Then he dropped me off.”

She squinted at me.  **“Why don’t I believe you.”**

**“Because you have a very suspicious nature.”**

She squinted a little longer, then she shrugged a little and shook her head. “Well, I’m glad you boys had some fun. I was worried earlier, when you wouldn’t admit that you were arguing. But it’s late, and it’s time for bed.” 

“I’m seventeen, Mom. I don’t have a bedtime.” 

“If I say you have a bedtime, you have a bedtime.” 

“Mom…” 

“Dante. Go to sleep.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When A Mom (Any Mom, Doesn't Even Have To Be Yours) Says It's Bedtime, It's Bedtime No Matter How Old You Are: A Free-Of-Charge Life Lesson By Raina
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	78. Remember the Rain - Chapter Twelve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Good dogs, ominous predictions, and minor interrogations. Ari wakes up way too early.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't appreciate when my children (aka Ari and Dante) are in pain but surprise surprise, that's like 75% of the goddamn book. So when they aren't in pain, my lil gay heart is quite pleased. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari has to leave for Tucson, so Dante takes Legs.

I woke up the next morning feeling well-rested, which didn’t normally happen. When I went into the kitchen for breakfast, my mom was sitting there with a glass of water. 

“Morning,” I said. 

“Ari called early. Probably 5:15.” 

“Seriously?” That was a truly ungodly hour. She smiled and rolled her eyes. “What did he need?” 

“Jaime’s driving them to Tucson today. His aunt isn’t doing well, apparently. A stroke.”

“Oh no,” I whispered. 

“He asked us to take Legs. They’ll probably be gone for a few days.” 

“I’ll call him.” 

“Good idea.” 

“How did he sound?” I asked. 

“Tired, mostly,” she said. 

“No, I mean, how did he  _ sound _ ? Was he sad? Was he angry?” 

“I don’t know, Dante,” she sighed. “I don’t know him as well as you do.” 

“I just need to know what he wants to hear.” 

“I think he’d be happy to hear from you no matter what you say.” 

I called him. 

“Hi, Ari.”

“Hi, Dante.” She’d been right; he was mostly tired. A little sad, maybe. Overwhelmed. 

I knew what to say immediately.

**“Sorry about your aunt. But, hey, I get Legs!”**

**“Yeah, you get Legs.”** There was a smile in his voice. I’d been right.  **“She likes to run in the morning. Early.”**

**“How early?”**

**“We get up at five forty-five.”**

**“Five forty-five! Are you crazy? What about sleep?”**

He laughed, and so did I.  **“Thanks for doing this.”**

He knew he didn’t need to thank me, so I ignored it.  **“Are you okay?”**

**“Yeah.”**

**“Did your dad give you hell for coming in late?”**

**“No. He was asleep.”**

I recounted my mom’s small interrogation from the night before.

**“Your mom has hyper instincts,”** Ari told me. 

**“Yeah, well, she can’t prove a thing.”**

**“I bet she knows.”**

**“How would she know?”** I asked quickly. 

**“I don’t know. But I bet she knows.”**

**“You’re making me paranoid,”** I said, my voice raising in pitch without my permission. 

**“Good,”** he said ominously. 

We were laughing, and it was all okay. 

Jaime, Legs, and Ari came to my house later that morning. I got a key to their house and instructions on which plants to water on which days. 

**“And don’t steal my truck,”** Ari said. 

**“I’m Mexican. I know all about hotwiring.”**

He laughed until he was wheezing.  **“Look, eating menudo and hotwiring a truck are two totally different forms of art.”**

My mom glared at us, and we pretended not to notice. 

Ari and Jaime had coffee with my parents while I showed Legs around the house. I let her sniff every room and get used to the scent to ease her into it a little bit. When we went to my room, I gave her my shoes. She took one and carried it with us, stopped every now and then to adjust or chew on it a bit. 

When I made it back to the kitchen, they were already laughing (except Jaime, who seemed confused). 

**“Look what she found, Mom.”**

And they laughed harder. Even Jaime. 

I thought that it must’ve been my job, to make my family laugh. 

I could be happy with that. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	79. Remember the Rain - Chapter Thirteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shattering, Chicago memories, and old routines.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Legs is the best girl and I love her. That's it, that's my notes. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari asks about Bernardo on the drive to Tucson. Jaime struggles a bit, but he tells Ari that Ari was sent to live with Ophelia for a few months when he was young because Lilly had a breakdown surrounding Bernardo's trial and imprisonment.

“What do you think about going back to counseling?” 

My mom and I were in the living room reading. My dad was still writing. Legs was on the floor laying on my feet. I looked up from my book. 

“I talked to Doctor Guerra yesterday. You remember her, right?” 

“Of course I do.” 

“Well, she said she has openings,” she said. 

“I don’t know,” I told her.

“It might help you. The accident was a long time ago, but Chicago was hard for you. I could tell, and so could your father. You seemed almost depressed, and you mostly talked about Ari when you talked at all.” 

“I wasn’t depressed, Mom,” I groaned. 

“I didn’t say you were. I said you seemed almost like it, like maybe you were showing a symptom or two.” 

“That was phrased completely differently just now.” 

“Dante,” she sighed. “Just think about it, okay?” 

“I don’t need to think about it. I’m not going.” 

I didn’t want to feel broken when I wasn’t. What did broken even mean, anyway? I knew you didn’t have to be broken to go to therapy, but it made me feel fragile. 

I wasn’t fragile. I wasn’t. And I wouldn’t be made to feel that way. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember that therapy is important and you don't have to have a mental illness to go to therapy. It's a very useful tool and you should not be like Dante because Dante's being a lil shit here. He has trauma and he should go. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	80. Remember the Rain - Chapter Fourteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pondering, charcoal sketches, and the unreachable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had some chapter rearranging and combining in order to finalize the chapter count, so this one corresponds to two chapters from the book, both 13 and 14 from Remember the Rain. I don't know if that made any sense, but just trust me on this one. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter 13 recap: Aunt Ophelia has passed away. The funeral is full.  
> AADDTSOTU chapter 14 recap: Lilly and Jaime explain to Ari that Ophelia and Franny were lovers. They say that they never cared. They also promise to tell Ari about Bernardo.

I opened my sketchbook and started a new drawing in charcoal.

I couldn’t tell what it was at first, but then I saw it. My hand kept moving until I was finished. 

It was Ari’s truck in the desert, from the back side. We were sitting in the truck bed wrapped in a blanket, holding each other. Legs was next to us. The sky was thick with clouds, but it wasn’t raining. 

I thought of the accident. The rain then had been like the world was opening up and swallowing itself whole. The rain had come and gone and left us clean and new in its wake.

And then I’d done the stupid thing that had haunted my in my dreams for months after. The thing that had sent Ari to the hospital and me to the hospital and then to therapy. 

I thought of the kiss. The delicate, heated movements of our lips against each other. His mouth had tasted like no one had tasted before. 

He’d pulled away and not spoken to me for days after. I felt bad, but I felt intoxicated by it at the same time. It was almost impossible to be fully sorry when it had been that good. 

I was still sorry, though. Of course I was. 

I stared at the drawing. It felt like my subconscious was mocking me, sending me images of a thing I could never have from deep inside me. 

Sometimes, though… 

Sometimes Ari would look at me a second too long. Our hands would brush, and it would almost be like it was on purpose. I’d sit too close to him, way closer than was necessary, until our legs were almost pressed together, and he wouldn’t move away.

And maybe I had been imagining it, but when he stood up before we kissed, I could’ve sworn I’d seen something in his eyes. 

But not really. None of that was anything more than me projecting. I could never have him, because he didn’t even like boys. Even if he did, there was no reason for him to love me like I loved him. I was just Dante. 

I tore out the page. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No Dante, you don't understand! You're amazing and we love you! 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	81. Remember the Rain - Chapter Fifteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Wow," basic dates, and the thing that's truly unknowable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realized that this is going to have a higher word count than the actual book and that feels weird to me. I'm all done plotting everything out (finally) and... there's a lot of sad stuff left. I'm nervous. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari calls Dante to tell him about getting Ophelia's house.

“Hey, Dante?” Daniel said one day at work. 

“Yeah?” 

“Do you maybe want to, uh, go see a movie later today? When we get off?” He seemed nervous.  _ Why? _ He was just asking me to see a movie. 

Oh. 

“You mean like…” I trailed off and waved vaguely. “Like a date?”

“Yeah, like that,” he said quietly. 

I took a deep breath. I mean, I didn’t really know the guy. So what was the harm? Besides, if there was one thing I couldn’t have, it was the one guy I wanted to go on a date with. This was probably the next best thing, right? Daniel seemed nice enough. 

“Sure.” 

He smiled. He had a nice smile, I guess. Kind of shy-looking. “Yeah?” 

“Yeah.”

So, we did go to see a movie. I don’t remember what it was, but I remember that he took my hand between our seats, and I let him. It was nice, I think. 

After that, he kept asking me to go places with him almost every day. We went to a cafe, and then the movies again, and then the Charcoaler. He wasn’t too good at planning dates, I guess. I didn’t really mind. 

The phone rang. 

“Ari?” 

“You guessed it, Dante.” He sounded tired. There was probably a lot going on. Big gatherings wore him out, I knew that. Especially with his family. 

“Hi.”

“My aunt left me her house.” 

**“What?”**

**“Yeah.”**

**“Wow,”** I said. 

**“‘Wow’ is right.”**

**“Is it a big house?”**

**“Yeah. It’s a great house,”** he told me. He sounded kind of far-away, like he was remembering all the things that happened over the years in his aunt’s wow-big-great house. 

**“What are you going to do with the house?”**

**“Well, apparently there’s a friend of my aunt’s who wants to buy it.”**

**“What are you going to do with all that money?”**

**“I don’t know,”** I said.  **“I haven’t thought about it.”**

I hummed thoughtfully.  **“Why do you suppose she left you the house?”**

**“I have no idea.”**

**“Well, you can quit your job at the Charcoaler.”**

He laughed, a breathy thing, still tired from the past few days. 

**“So what’ve you been up to?”** he asked. 

**“Working at the drugstore. And I’m sort of hanging out with this guy,”** I added, holding my breath. It wasn’t exciting to me. It was just a thing that I was doing, which was probably a sign that it wasn’t going how it should’ve been. I didn’t have it in me to care. But I didn’t know what Ari would think of it.

He exhaled kind of sharply.  **“Yeah?”**

**“Yeah.”**

There was a tight silence. I waited for him to say something else,  _ anything else. _ He didn’t. 

I changed the subject.  **“My mom and dad are in love with Legs.”**

“I bet they are.” 

“And so am I.” 

“I know  _ you _ are.” 

We hung up. Legs had perked up when she’d heard me say her name. She trotted over and sat down by where I was sitting with the phone. I stroked her head. 

That silence, after I talked about Daniel. Those moments when he could’ve said something. He could’ve asked me about him, or even said that he’d sort of been hanging out with a girl (thank fuck he didn’t). 

“What does that mean, Legs?” I whispered. 

Legs looked at me and thumped her tail against the floor a few times.

“Yeah, I don’t know either.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "People talk to dogs. Not that they understand. But maybe they understand enough." -BAS
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	82. Remember the Rain - Chapter Sixteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Simultaneous ease and difficulty. Fireworks are scary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm ~on a roll~ so I'm going to keep writing until I burn out! 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: The fourth of July. Lilly tells Ari about Franny, and how she died of cancer a few years back.

Independence Day came and went. 

The neighbors were shooting off fireworks in the park. We sat on the front porch and watched them light up the night sky in their brilliant colors. My mother held my father’s hand and watched him smile at the scene before us. The children in the park were screaming with delight, and the sharp  _ bang  _ and  _ pop _ of each firework made Legs growl. The night tasted of sweet tea and tingled in my nostrils.

When Legs started getting scared instead of defensive and cowered under my deck chair, I brought her inside. I sat on the floor and she climbed into my lap. She was a little too big to fit all the way, but it worked. 

I loved Legs. I loved her boy, too. Dogs and the boys who they loved were the easiest thing, I thought. Boys loved dogs, and dogs loved boys. 

Legs’ boy was the easiest and most difficult one to love. He was thoughtful and sweet, even though he claimed he was neither. He was just the right kind of strange. 

The problem was that he didn’t love me back. Or, at least not in the way I wanted him to. He wanted to be alone more often than anyone I’d ever met. He needed his space, and he needed a lot of it.

Legs, though. Legs loved Ari and me with her entire heart, and she wasn’t afraid of her love. She showed it all the time. She would run to greet us and lick our faces, lean into our touches and wag her tail when we spoke to her. Legs only knew love, and she knew it fully and completely. 

Another firework banged in the distance, and she whimpered. I wrapped my arms around her, and she leaned her face into my chest. 

We could learn a thing or two from our dogs, I thought. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you ever find yourself in love and the person has a dog, you should make friends with the dog. I don't know, I don't have any real advice here, but it's a dog and you should love the dog because the dog (probably) deserves it. And there's a good chance that the dog will love you back because it is a dog and that is what dogs do.  
> Dogs. Beautiful. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	83. Remember the Rain - Chapter Seventeen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Abundance, the hidden moon, and washing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Lilly says that she's going to give Ari the letters to and from Ophelia. There's a whole box of them.

Soon after the fourth of July, the storm came. 

It rained frequently enough in El Paso that it didn’t seem out of place. But those were short bursts. This was the longest I’d ever seen. 

It came at night, when the sky was already darkening and getting ready to fade to black for the hours to come. The half-moon disappeared behind a blanket of clouds and the rain started to fall. 

It came down almost in sheets. I sat up in bed and watched through the window, which you could soon no longer see through due to the amount of water being thrown at it. The wind wailed against the side of the house, and the branches of trees bent so far I thought they’d come right off. 

I’d thought that before. That day, the previous summer. That day when it all changed. It was like this. Just like this. 

Legs jumped up on my bed and burrowed under the covers. She hated storms, Ari had once told me. The thunder began, so loud the house actually shook. She cried, and I scooped her little shaking body into my arms and pulled her to me. 

Lightning. More thunder. Rain, and rain, and rain. 

It felt like the world was ending. No, it felt like the world was beginning. 

It felt like the beginning of the world was ending and the end of the world was beginning, and every moment in history had led up to me now sitting in bed with a brown and white dog in my arms in the middle of a storm so all-encompassing, it felt like the universe was changing.

Everything was washed away as I fell asleep without even laying back down. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I enjoy examining where rain is put in this book and thinking for long periods of time about what it means in each scenario and how it ties them together and let's just say I do it way too often. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	84. Remember the Rain - Chapter Eighteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grey is white and it's black and it's also neither.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't know how to write this chapter at first. I cried the whole time. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Driving back to El Paso. 
> 
> **CW/TW: Homophobic Violence**

Daniel kept asking me on dates, and I kept agreeing. It was slow, and it was fine. I didn’t put much energy into it, but neither did he. 

He got way more confident. Apparently, the boy I had taken for shy had just been bashful because he liked me (which was sort of endearing, objectively). He was actually kind of talkative, and he had this straightforward way about him. He liked to tell it like it was, and I sort of admired that about him. I valued the truth, sure, but I was a lot more tactful than he was. Sometimes, you just needed someone to rip off the bandaid. Get it out of the way. 

That day, he’d pulled me by the hand into the back alley after we got off work. It was quiet back there; hardly anyone ever walked by. 

He offered me a joint. I said no, so he put it away. We stood there. 

“I like you, Dante,” he said.

I laughed. “I know, Daniel.” 

“Do you like me?” 

“Yes.” I didn’t think it was a lie, not then. It was so easy to say yes, so easy to say what he wanted to hear. 

“Good. I really like you, you know.” 

I laughed again. 

“I’ve liked boys before, but you’re not like other guys.” 

“You’ve told me that, too,” I said. 

“I know I have. I’m reminding you.” 

“Okay, well, I’ve been reminded of the fact.” 

And he kissed me. 

It was okay. He tasted faintly like the turkey sandwich I’d seen him eat for lunch, and not much else. I closed my eyes, and it was okay. 

It was just okay until I let myself pretend it was Ari whose mouth was on mine. I imagined that my fingers were running though his adorably long hair and scraping his scalp. I morphed the noise Daniel made when I took his lip between my teeth so that it was Ari. I pretended, and I got closer to him, and closer, and there wasn’t any more space between us. Suddenly, it wasn’t so bad anymore. Suddenly, I was burning with the light of all the fires I’d kept putting out inside me. 

Imagination was a secret of the universe. 

That’s when it happened.

They say the brain can block out trauma. They say that, when something truly awful and scarring happens to the mind, everything goes black and you can’t remember it. It’s like your mind’s way of preserving itself. Almost like fainting, but you’re still conscious.

When the accident happened, the world had gone white. 

Now, the world just went hazy. Not black. Not white. More like grey. I heard my own heart beating and the heaving of my breaths, and not much else.

This thing that was happening to me. This thing that would haunt me. This thing that was so profoundly horrifying, I don’t have the words to describe it. This thing was happening, and I stopped thinking and feeling and maybe I stopped doing anything but try to breathe. It was like watching from above. Watching it happen to someone else through a thick fog, but not being sure what you’re watching and not sure if you’re watching anything at all. 

There were some boys, suddenly there. Yelling at us. They were angry, and I didn’t understand why they hated me so much.

Daniel told me to run. I didn’t. They could hurt me. Of course they could. I wasn’t a fighter, didn’t even know how to throw a punch. 

But why did that mean I should leave? 

And Daniel ran. And the boys got closer, spitting boiling words and calling me things that I will not ever bring myself to repeat. 

And then they were closer than they should have ever been.

I’d never been hit before. I was still watching from above.

They’d been going at me for, I don’t know, maybe ten minutes. I was on the ground in the fetal position. They were kicking me, and I stopped feeling it. I mostly heard it rattling through my bones and the scrape of my already-raw cheek on the pavement.

I didn’t even know the moment when my ribs cracked.

I don’t know when they left. I don’t remember much about the whole thing, and I can’t tell what’s a memory and what someone else told me after. It’s all grey. 

I do know that I could’ve died there. I realized that I could’ve stopped fighting so hard for every breath that I took and let my eyes slide shut. I know that I could’ve let myself lose consciousness. I could have given up. Sometimes, when I’m having a particularly bad day, I think that it would’ve been easier for everyone if I had. 

But there was a face in my mind. The face of a woman with a life inside of her. She was strong and quiet, but she was warm. She knew me more than anyone for years and years. And then the face of a man, and the corner of his eyes were wrinkled from smiles. A man who corrected peoples’ grammar and went bowling with someone’s dad because he needed a friend. 

The faces of a man and a woman, older than the first two. Faces who had raised the most beautiful child. Faces who told their son’s best friend to call them by their first names even when they barely knew him. Faces who had seen a war in the worst way possible and waited for it to be over on different sides of an ocean. 

Then,  _ oh,  _ and then… 

The face of a boy with warm skin, darker than mine, and hair that flipped and swayed in the breeze. A boy with deep, deep eyes. A boy who had a crooked smile and a laugh that filled a room. A boy who said my name like it meant something. (Maybe, if I listened hard enough, like it meant everything.) A boy who thought that nobody would ever know him. 

If I gave up, I’d never get to prove him wrong. 

There was a woman in front of me, then. She looked afraid. She went and used the payphone. She didn’t talk long. And then she was gone. 

And as I was counting my breaths and trying to get the next one out, I heard the sirens. I let my eyes slide closed. I didn’t have to fight anymore. There were people who could do the fighting for me. 

Grey subsided to black, and the world slid into silence. 


	85. All the Secrets of the Universe - Chapter One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hurt. Hurt. Hurt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari gets home. He has an ~interesting~ dream, and he wants to "shake hands with his best friend," but instead takes a cold shower.

I woke up in a hospital bed. 

There were some nurses there, touching me. I wasn’t exactly awake, but I wasn’t exactly not. 

For a few moments, I didn’t remember what had happened. 

And then I did. 

And pain was the only thing on the inside and the only thing on the outside. 

I couldn’t even cry. I closed my eyes again. 

It hurt too much to be awake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm? Crying? So? Hard?? 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	86. All the Secrets of the Universe - Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Croaking, silence, and a fuzzy brain. The passage of time and nice nurses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We got more tears, y'all. More. Tears. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari finds out about the accident. (The chapters don't line up in timing.)

The next time I woke up, I was feeling slightly (slightly, slightly) more human. 

A nurse was standing next to me. She smiled. I tried to smile back, and then I moaned. My face was swollen and puffy and it hurt so bad. Everything hurt. My side, my ribs, hurt the most. 

“No, don’t move, sweetheart,” the nurse said soothingly. 

I tried to say something, anything. Did my parents know where I was? Did they know what had happened? What  _ had  _ happened? I knew I was attacked, but I didn’t really remember that much. Fuzzy, grey. 

“Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be okay.” 

I tried to believe her. 

“I’ll be right back, sweetheart. Does that sound alright?” 

I tried to nod. It hurt. I didn’t move again.

The door swung open, and there they were. 

My parents, looking as terrible as I’d ever seen them. They stood there for a moment, by the door in my hospital room. 

It was so silent. The most excruciatingly deafening silence we’d ever had. 

My dad had so many tears on his face. So many, without making a sound.

And, after a moment, my mother screamed. It wasn’t high-pitched, not like a child. It was broken and ugly and bitter. It was like something was dying inside of her. Or something was being born. Yeah, something knew was being born inside of her. I thought it might have been something like heartbreak. But what did I know? 

She screamed and screamed. She was screaming out all the things that everyone was feeling. 

She broke down sobbing. My father tried to hold her, but she pushed him away. She sank onto her knees beside me. She took my hand between hers. 

“Dante, Dante, Dante,” she choked. “My sweet, sweet, boy, they hurt you, they did this to you, I love you, I love you, I thought we lost you, I love you, my boy, my Dante, Dante, Dante,  _ Dante _ .”

_ I’m here _ , I wanted to say.  _ I’m not dead. I’m not okay, and I’ll never be okay. Never again. But I’m not dead. I’m alive. I’m here.  _

My dad came up behind her and looked at me. 

“Son,” he whispered. All the hurt that he held in his eyes came out in that word. I wanted to cry. Maybe I was crying. My face hurt so much, I wouldn’t have felt the tears. 

We stayed like that, me in my bed and my mom on the floor holding my hand and sobbing and my dad standing behind her and looking at me. We stayed like that until a nurse came in. How long? Ten minutes? Ten seconds? More than that? _Hours?_

The nurse got chairs and kept checking my vitals. She wasn’t as nice as the last one. She didn’t call me sweetheart. 

My mom wouldn’t let go of my hand. They got her to sit in a chair instead of on the floor. My dad put his hand on top of both of ours. They cried and we stared at each other. 

How do you have so much love inside of you? How can you hold this much love? 

That day, it was spilling out. It was spilling out in my dad’s silence, the most colorful man I’d ever known drawn in black and white. It spilled out in my mother’s scream and her sobs, the way she broke down. The woman who was the glue holding us together, who never trembled or hesitated. 

It spilled out into the air around us, and I could almost taste it. 

And everything hurt. It all hurt. 

It hurt more than anything had ever hurt before. 

The thing that I had to say the most finally passed my lips. 

“You have to tell Ari.” 

It came out croaky and barley there. My mother choked on her sob and started up louder. My dad sucked his lips into his mouth and closed his eyes, like he always did when he was going to cry harder. 

Time passed strangely, and it faded back to the darkness of dreamless sleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, Dante. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	87. All the Secrets of the Universe - Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ICU, not leaving, and closing your eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ari's back!! Yay Ari!!
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari tells his parents that Dante's in the hospital. He goes to see Dante, then sits with Sam and Soledad. They talk, and Soledad tells him that she thinks Dante loves him. Ari knows that she's right.

I slept most of the time. When I woke up, it just hurt and hurt. There was nothing I could do but grumble and wait for the nurses to give me more morphine or whatever shit they were pumping into me. It didn’t matter, as long as it made it so I could at least breathe. 

My dad went home. He promised me he’d tell Ari. I whispered to my mom, and I told her she should go, too. Take a shower, take a nap, have a meal, anything. She’d barely left my side the whole time. When I told her that, she just laughed, wet and cold and short. She was wearing the same clothes and the bags under her eyes were big enough to hold all the hurt she was carrying in her tense shoulders. 

My dad came back later that day and told me he’d said something to Ari. They stayed again, watching me sleep or be fed or lay there staring at the place where the light grey walls met the white ceiling. The ICU wasn’t exactly the most entertaining place. 

I was stirring from another nap when I heard his voice. 

**“Dante?”**

It was quiet and broken, nothing like the voice that belonged to the boy that I loved. He was next to me, holding my hand. I wanted to hold his hand, maybe, but he was holding mine. There was a difference, I thought. There was a difference, and what I wanted was for us to hold each others’ hands, really. But he was just holding mine, and that had to be enough. 

It was.

**“Ari?”**

He said something else, too quiet and far away for me to hear. 

**“Ari?”** I whispered. 

**“I should have been here,”** Ari said, louder this time.  **“I hate them. I hate them.”**

_ Oh, Ari,  _ I wanted to say.  _ Oh, my Ari. Don’t hate the boys, Ari. Hate the world. Hate the world that told the boys that it was okay, because it’s the world’s fault. Nobody’s the villain in their own story, Ari. Not even those boys. Hate the world, Ari. Hating the boys is just going to hurt you. Hate the world, and then love it, and then make it your own.  _

He stood there looking at me, and it hurt. Everything hurt, all the time. And he was staring, with all that pain he held in his eyes directed right at me, and it hurt even more. I didn’t know it could hurt more. But it could. 

My mom came up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. She’d left the room when my dad had told her Ari was coming. Ari kept looking at me for a minute, then he turned to her. He was still holding my hand. 

She looked at him in that way of hers. He looked back at me and took a deep breath. He didn’t smile. He slid my hand back onto the bed, and it was cold. My mom put a hand on his back, and he stood up and followed her out of the room. 

She was being strong for him. I knew that look she had in her eye. 

No trace of the woman who had screamed all those years (no, hours… no, days, actually) ago. She’d put herself back together. She had someone to be strong for again. 

I loved her more than I loved swimming and the desert and reading and painting and drawing and living. I loved Ari more than those things, too, but it was a different love. 

Love was everything that made up my life. I lived it. I breathed it. 

Hate was the thing that left my lying in that bed, crying without really crying that day. Hate was the thing that almost took my love away from me. 

I learned so many secrets of the universe after I came back from the ground in that alley. So many secrets. I think the first was that hate didn’t do anything but destroy. It didn’t change the world, not like love did. 

I hoped the boys who had done that to me would learn that. 

I hoped I could stop hating them. 

I closed my eyes. I was doing that a lot lately.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aww :(
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	88. All the Secrets of the Universe - Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wandering dreams and the patterns of over and over and over and over again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes some Emotional Energy to write, man. If I'm already sad, there's no way I can write these things. I have to be in a good mood to start out, otherwise I end up a puddle on the floor. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari pays Daniel a little visit at work.

Hours passed, then a few days. It hurt. It kept hurting. 

The nurse I’d first woken up to kept taking care of me. I think I was her favorite. She was definitely mine. 

She kept calling me “sweetheart” and asking if I needed anything. It was getting easier to talk and much easier to hear. I would say no, I didn’t need anything, and she would smile and tell me to let her know if I did. 

I thought about my mom and how she’d broken. I thought about my dad and how he was trying so hard. I thought about Ari and how much I loved him, and the way he’d looked at me when he came to see me. How he’d looked at me like I was so fragile and like he was so sorry. Which I suppose was true. He’d never looked at me like that before. 

I thought about my old English teacher from Chicago, who lived with her best friend and their cats. I thought about David, who’d wanted to kiss me. I thought about Emma, who would’ve liked it if I’d called her. I never did call her. Not ever. 

I thought about the kiss in my bedroom. If I closed my eyes, I could imagine it happening again. I would go away in my head to imagine it whenever the doctor would come in and prick me with needles or touch my cracked ribs, which hurt like hell. It all hurt. I would imagine it, and it would set me on fire. I would imagine it, and I could fly. 

I had dreams, too. Dreams about boys who were yelling at me. Boys I didn’t know, who hated me before they knew me. Boys who kept coming closer to me, even as I backed away. They were stronger than me, faster than me. They knew how to fight, and they didn’t hesitate to do it. 

I would wake up sweating. My mom would be there. I think they just let her stay all the time. I think she would’ve found a way to stay no matter what. And she would hold my hand and smooth my hair (gently, so gently, not touching my puffy face), and I would fall back to sleep. 

And then I would wake up, and the nurse would be back calling me sweetheart and asking if I needed anything. My dad would feed me. My mom would hold my hand. I would stare at the ceiling and think and think until my brain went numb and I fell back into my dreams. 

Cycles of hurting. Patterns of pain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, this is sad, but also, while it's happening, Ari's threatening Daniel and shoving him into the wall before going off to avenge his Dante's honor or whatever. And I think that's not very heterosexual of him. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	89. All the Secrets of the Universe - Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hoarse voices, smiling until it doesn't hurt anymore, and insurance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope Sam and Soledad have a fantastic day. And you, too. You have a fantastic day, too, please. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari goes crazy. Julian Enriquez ends up feeling that crazy. (And he's a fucking asshole and he absolutely deserves it sorry not sorry.)

“Mom?”

“Yes, honey?” She sat up straighter and leaned closer, her eyebrows immediately drawing together in worry. I saw the panic flutter behind her eyes. I hardly spoke in those days, and I never spoke first. My dad stood up to get the nurse.

“Don’t worry, I’m okay,” I whispered. Dad sat down and sighed.

“I know you are. You are  _ so _ okay. You’re going to be okay,” my mom said. 

I tried to smile, grimaced instead. “I don’t really remember what happened.” 

“That’s okay. You don’t need to. All you need to do is get better.”

“No, I… I want to know.” 

She took a deep breath. “Well, I don’t know what you know right now.” 

“I know I was in an alley, kissing…” I trailed off. “I was in an alley. And there were these guys, I guess, maybe. The guy I was with, Daniel, he told me to run. I didn’t, but he did. And then I remember being on the ground and being here.”

My mom was crying again. “That’s what we know, too.” 

“Okay.” 

“Yeah.” 

“It’s okay, mom,” I said, my voice hoarse with all my talking. It was the most I’d spoken in a row. “I’m okay.”

“I know. I know.” 

She sat there holding my hand. It was all she ever did, then. My dad cried, too, and he wrapped an arm around my mom. 

I was glad they had each other. They loved each other more than anyone I’d seen. They had each other and their son who loved wrong and got beat up for it. 

“Who’s paying for this?” I asked in a whisper. “Insurance?” 

“Don’t worry about that,” my dad told me. 

“All I do is worry,” I said. The truth, it seemed, came out easier after you’d almost died. 

“You have nothing to worry about.” His face was soft and open and hurt. “You have nothing to worry about, Dante.” 

He didn’t understand. I had everything to worry about. 

If the way that I loved put me there, in that hospital room, how could I not worry about it? How could I not think about it all the time, every single day? How could I not make myself sick over this thing that was a part of me? 

He didn’t understand. He couldn’t. 

I tried to smile again. It hurt less this time.  _ Good.  _

Progress. 

The look on my mother’s face when she saw my partial, not-quite-a-smile smile was worth all the pain I had felt. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I need to find other words for crying. I've used sobbing. I've used wailing, once, and I already regret it. They do so much of it. I need more words. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	90. All the Secrets of the Universe - Chapter Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trembling, painful love, and more alright than before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We have a happy chapter! Woohoo!
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Jaime and Lilly talk to Ari about the fight.

My dad finally coaxed my mom into going home. She made him promise to call the house phone if I so much as said “ow.” He shoved her out the door. 

We were alone, and it was quiet. It was always quiet. 

“So…” he said. 

I stared at him. 

“Uh, so, boys, huh?” 

“Dad…” 

“No, no, hear me out,” he rushed, holding up his hands in surrender. “I’m not going to make you talk about it, okay? You’ve been through so much. You just need to listen to what I’m about to say, okay?” 

I nodded slightly. My heart was beating way too fast for a guy who hadn’t gotten out of bed in so long. 

“I love you,” he began. “I love you so much, Dante. So much that it hurts me sometimes, to feel all that love. It’s a good hurt, though. It feels full. Like I’m bursting with all that love.

That day, you were kissing a boy. It seems like you like to kiss boys?” 

I nodded. Because I did. I really, really did. There was no hiding that anymore.

“And not girls.” 

I nodded again. 

“Okay. See, that’s it! Okay! It’s okay, son. And Ari told me that you want your sibling to be a boy who likes girls so we can have grandkids. Don’t worry, I pressed him, he didn’t just tell me. We were both very distressed. He’s not spilling your secrets, okay? Anyway, you don’t have to worry about that, or anything about how you like to kiss boys. Not ever. Don’t ever worry about it. I love you so, so much, Dante. I love you more than I love the idea of having grandkids. I love you.” 

I sat there crying. 

“I don’t mind that you didn’t tell me. I know dads are scary sometimes, especially when you’re different. I can’t pretend that I know what it feels like, but I know that I love your mother, and that feeling is the strongest thing I’ve felt besides my love for you. Your mother and I would never ask you not to kiss boys. Not ever.” 

He was crying, too. We were crying and looking at each other, and he took a deep breath. I didn’t know what else he had to say after that. 

“Dante, listen to me. You have to go out there and be who you are. It’s going to be hard. So, so hard. Especially after what’s happened to you. But I need you to go out and love boys and kiss boys and maybe, one day, marry a boy who loves you as much as you love him. I need you to be who you are, because I saw the boy in Chicago who wasn’t that, and I don’t want that for you. Ever. I need you to love how you love, because it will kill you if you don’t. You know it as much as I do. It will kill you.” 

I nodded, lip trembling. 

“Can you do that for me?” he asked, shaky with tears. “Can you let yourself be free?” 

I let out a sob. “Yeah,” I blubbered. 

“Oh, Dante,” he whispered. He took my hand. 

We cried there, together. Two men, different in different ways. Different, in a world that didn’t like differences. Two men who understood each other a little more than we had as we’d woken that morning. 

“Hey, Dad?” 

“Yeah?” 

“You’re right.” 

“About what?” 

“I really like kissing boys. I really, really do.” 

We laughed, then, wet and shaky. And we were alright. More than alright. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gay and my relationship with my parents is... *winces* so this heals my soul and I just love Sam Quintana, thank you and goodnight
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	91. All the Secrets of the Universe - Chapter Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dying, living, and truth. Adults being adults and a curious conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was exactly one page in google docs and that's very satisfying for some reason. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Jaime leaves. Ari gets out of the shower, and they talk about how imperfect they are. Lilly hangs up some pictures of Bernardo.

The doctor came in to see me. Well,  _ one _ of the doctors. There were so many people, I could hardly remember who did what anymore. 

“You’re progressing well, Dante,” he said. 

“Good.” 

“Yes, very good. You came in pretty beat up, huh?” 

“Yeah.” 

“How’s your pain.” 

“Not so good. But better than it was.” 

We talked about that for a minute. The doctor wrote something on his clipboard, then set it down in his lap and folded his hands. He was studying me. 

“What?” I said. 

“Son, I think you should know something.” 

“What is it?” 

“It might be a little…” he trailed off. “Disturbing. But it’s my job, and I think it’s time.” 

“Go ahead,” I told him. 

He took a deep breath. “You came very close to dying. If you’d been brought in any later, there’s a very good chance you wouldn’t have made it. You were losing quite a bit of blood in so many places. You’re lucky to be alive.” 

He looked at me carefully, like he was waiting for me to be upset. 

I tried to shrug and ended up wincing. “I know.” 

“What do you mean?” he asked, frowning and tilting his head. He leaned forward, ready to take notes. All these adults, it was like they wanted to be my therapist.

“I mean, I  _ know _ . I knew that already. That I would’ve died.”

“I see.” 

He was nodding, and I was staring at him. 

“I can’t explain it,” I said finally. 

“No, no, I think I can understand. I mean, I can’t; I haven’t been in anything like your situation. But I understand what you’re saying.” 

He kept nodding. 

When the doctor came back for his next appointment, I asked him a question. 

“Did you tell my parents I almost died?” 

“Yes,” he said. “On the phone when we called them. They arrived minutes after we hung up, and they had to wait for a few hours while we patched you up. There were too many people in the room.” 

“Oh.” I nodded, and it felt almost fine. That made me smile. 

“We let them in as soon as we could,” the doctor offered. 

“I know, that’s what they said. My mom… She took it really hard. My dad, too, but Mom’s not the emotional one.” 

“These things aren’t easy,” he said quietly. “They show you a lot about the kind of person you are.” 

I thought that was an interesting thing to say. Interesting and true. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now, I am not a medical expert, and I do not have any medical knowledge that doesn't apply to my job at a daycare center (the things that apply are like, CPR, Heimlich, Epinephrine injections, and bandaids. That's about all). It's hard to research what Dante's recovery is like because he's got a lot going on, and the only details are his puffy face and his cracked ribs, which aren't super descriptive?? So I'm making this up as I go along. Humor me, if you would, and allow me to bullshit this. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	92. All the Secrets of the Universe - Chapter Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Strange emotions, private chats, and coffee. The depths of sleep and the Designated Forehead Kiss Spot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Lilly tells Ari that Jaime went to see Sam.

One afternoon, I was drifting off. My dad was reading to me, and my mom had gone home for a shower. 

The door swung open. I blinked and tried to sit up, then remembered I had to hit the button and wait for the hospital bed to inch me up to a seated position. 

“Dante?” my dad was saying. He put a hand on my arm, which was fumbling for the controls.

“Huh?” 

“Jaime’s here. We’re going for coffee.” 

“Okay.” 

“I’ll be back soon.” 

“Okay.” 

“Sleep well. Love you,” he said, kissing the spot on my forehead my mom had proclaimed the most healed and kiss-appropriate. 

“Love you,” I mumbled. Sleep pulled me into its depths. 

When I woke up, my dad was back. He was sitting in his usual chair staring at me. 

I grumbled something that was unintelligible even to me. 

He chuckled. “Hey, Dante.” 

I moved my bed so I was halfway sitting up. “How was coffee?” I asked when I was awake enough to form words. 

“Good.” 

“Good.” 

“We talked about some things.” He had this look on his face. 

“What things?” 

“I shouldn’t say. It’s kind of private.” 

“About me?” 

“Yes, about you. And Ari.” 

“Then how is it private, if it’s about me?” I asked. “Seems like more my business than yours, if anything.”

He shook his head and smiled. “Not even hospitalization can stop you from arguing with me.” 

“Nope,” I agreed. 

“Oh, Ari did something, though. That, I can say.” 

“What did he do?” 

“He went into your work and found the guy. What was his name?” 

“Daniel,” I said. My heartbeat quickened.  _ Why Daniel?  _

“Yes, that’s it,” my dad said. “He found Daniel and got him to say who…” he trailed off and closed his eyes. “Who came after the two of you.” 

“Oh.” I didn’t want to know. I wanted to know more than anything. I didn’t want to know. 

“Yeah. Turns out, Ari knew one of the names. He went and found that kid, and, well, the kid had to go to the emergency room.” 

“Oh.” I felt my eyes fill with tears. “Oh, God.” 

“Dante,” my dad whispered. He took my hand. 

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” I insisted. “Just, I don’t like it when he does that stuff.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah.”

I was remembering a fallen sparrow and some boys with guns in their hands and sneers on their lips. I was remembering Ari’s face when he looked at them, when he said what he said. I was remembering the way the sharp words fell from his lips as easily as jokes or stories or anything else, really. I was remembering how his eyes had seemed darker than usual, and how that made me feel. 

I was remembering the boy who knew that I didn’t like to fight, and had almost done it for me without even asking. A boy who would never direct that anger at me, but who still put it out into the world. 

“He gets mad sometimes,” I said. 

“I know,” my dad said. 

“Not at me. But at other people. Or at the universe.” 

“We all get mad. It’s only human.” 

“His mad is different. It’s different from your mad and Mom’s mad and my mad.” 

“People experience emotions differently.” 

“That’s not what I’m trying to say.” I sighed. “I mean, he needs something to do with his anger. And he hurts people sometimes. Or he yells, or he breaks down crying, or he…” I trailed off. I couldn’t say that he got drunk or high in the desert. “He  _ does _ things with his anger, Dad. He’s not like us. He can’t talk it out and move on.” 

“Maybe he can. It sounds like he doesn’t really try.” 

“He tries,” I protested, suddenly defensive. 

“Okay.” Dad looked skeptical. 

“He does,” I said again. I wasn’t sure if it was true. 

My dad looked down at the floor. We let ourselves fall into silence. 

“Anything else?” I asked. 

He looked at me again. “You know how much I love you, right?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Well, I love you. So much.” 

I smiled. “Jaime told you that over coffee, huh?”

He laughed. “I really do love you, kid.” 

“I love you too, Dad.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do people have relationships like this with their parents? Because how do you have that and please teach me your secrets. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	93. All the Secrets of the Universe - Chapter Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hitting a wall and somehow, it gets worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We got some serious angst here. I'm sorry. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Lilly and Jaime tell Ari about Bernardo. Mostly Jaime, though. "To be careful with people and with words was a rare and beautiful thing."

It came in parts, I think. Or maybe it came all at once. The important thing, though, is that it came. 

I was remembering what happened through that hazy grey fog in my mind. Like I was watching it happen to someone else. The details were unclear. When I told people what happened, I would say it very calmly and stoically, which was rather unlike me. I would cry because my parents cried, or because I was in so much pain, or because I was in the hospital. 

Remembering the entire thing more clearly was like running as fast as I could into a solid brick wall. 

My mom found me crying one day. 

“What’s wrong?” she asked. 

I just cried harder. That’s all I did for days. 

“They were…” I choked out between violent, heaving sobs. “They… hurt me… Mom, they… they hurt me.” 

She perched herself next to me on the bed and wrapped a careful arm around my injured shoulders. 

“Dante,” she whispered. “You’re safe now. You’re okay.” 

“It hurt so bad,” I wailed. The sobs were like a toddler’s, loud and uncontrollable and almost like screaming. The room echoed with them. “It hurts, it hurts, it hurts…” 

I dissolved onto the bed and into my mom’s shoulder. 

She stroked my hair and cried into it. “I know, baby. I know they hurt you. I’m so sorry. I’m here.” She whispered her nonsense and I petered out into spaced-out moans and wet cheeks. 

“Why are people so mean?” I whispered. “Why do they hate me? Am I bad, Mom?” 

“No,” she said firmly. She pulled back and looked me in the eyes. 

“But they hate me.” 

“They’re wrong. You didn’t do anything wrong.” She was so fierce, so strong. 

“Are you sure?” I asked. It was a child’s question, soft and shy and without a new answer. 

“Yes. Say it with me. You didn’t do anything wrong.” 

“I didn’t do anything wrong.” 

“Again.” 

“I didn’t do anything wrong.” 

She kept making me say it until the sounds blurred into a meaningless blob in my mushy brain. 

I really knew, now, that the attack had happened to  _ me, _ and not someone else. It wasn’t a far-off dream. It was real. 

That pain, I decided, was worse than all of what I’d felt so far. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	94. All the Secrets of the Universe - Chapter Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another day, choosing to breathe, and downpour. The only thing left to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realized that I was sort of implying (or maybe outright stating) that Dante's hospital stay was longer than it actually was? I don't remember exactly when but I might have said that he was there for a week or more. Whoops. No, it was actually four days. It just felt like a long time. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Dante goes home.

Somehow, I got better.

Time passed in a nonlinear daydream. It felt like weeks had gone by. I could talk normally, since the shock had worn off, and my face started to feel less puffy. I could shrug and nod and even smile, although I didn’t. It felt like I’d been in that hospital for longer than four days. It felt like I’d been there for the rest of summer, and maybe more. 

After my little realization, which happened on the third morning, something had changed. I knew it couldn’t be the same. 

I stopped feeling everything so deeply. The only emotions I made room for were sadness and love. Sadness, by choice, because it was the thing that filled the air around me. I had to breathe, so I chose to accept the sadness instead of pushing it away. Love, because it was impossible not to. 

Ari had been there. Everyday, he came to see me. I didn’t know why. I wasn’t much fun to hang out with. We just sat in the hospital room. He would talk to me or read to me or tell me about the people from the bus on the way there. I’d tell him I was getting better, and he’d kind of smile. He was the only person who didn’t look at me like I was broken. I was starting to feel like I was. But Ari looked at me like I was Dante. Dante, who’d been hurt, yes. But Dante who would heal. 

And I loved him. I always loved him. 

The day I went home, Ari was there to ride in the car with me. My parents surrounded me with pillows, and I felt so small. I felt like the bird those boys had shot all those months ago. I was helpless. There was nothing anyone could do that would make it better. 

I couldn’t do anything. I wasn’t allowed to do any of my summer things. It didn’t matter. 

My dad helped me get into bed. My mom had already arranged everything. There were always so many pillows. 

Ari came and sat on my chair and looked at me. 

“I’m home,” I said. 

“You’re home,” he said. 

The tears rolled down my cheeks. My shoulders shook with them. Just when I’d thought I was done with the crying. Just when I thought could hold everything inside me. 

Ari climbed into my bed and wrapped his arms around me. He was careful, but not like my mother was, or my dad. They held me like I was going to shatter into a million pieces. Ari held me like I was the only thing left that hadn’t. 

He held me and didn’t say anything. I cried into the softness where his neck met his shoulder. The torrential downpour of my emotions was never-ending and silent. 

The only thing I could do was be held. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :((
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	95. All the Secrets of the Universe - Chapter Eleven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Visits, reminiscing, and electricity. Denying the truth and No Ari I'm Not Tired.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Out of the hospital! Back at home, like Dante deserves. No, actually, he deserves so much better than any of this. I would give him my organs without hesitation if he asked. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari talks to Sam and Soledad about Julian and being street-smart while Dante takes a nap.

Ari kept coming to my house. Not everyday, but often enough. I didn’t have much I could do, but I didn’t actually mind. It was just better when there was someone to do nothing with. 

I tried really hard not to let my sadness show around him. He was around me so much, it would be kind of depressing if I was down all the time. I let myself be sad before he came and after he left, but while he was there, I let his presence warm me and tried to be my usual self. 

I kept falling asleep when he was there, which was annoying. The medicine I had to take when my ribs hurt made me so drowsy I had to fight to keep my eyes from sliding shut. 

One day, I’d held off on taking the meds because I knew Ari was coming over. Terrible idea, I know, but I wanted to soak up every moment he was in the room with me. 

Finally, I shifted and the pain was so sharp I actually yelped. 

“You okay?” Ari asked, eyebrows furrowed and arms halfway extended towards me like he was going to try and physically take my hurt in his hands. 

“Yeah.” I shifted again and winced. “No.” 

“I’ll get your pills.” 

He came back a minute later with two of them on a napkin and a glass of water. 

“Your mom said you skipped this morning.” 

“Maybe I was feeling better.” 

“Were you?” 

I didn’t answer. 

“Dante…” 

“They don’t make me feel good!” I protested weakly. 

“Take your medicine,” he admonished. 

“Yeah, yeah.”

He handed me the pills and the glass. I swallowed them and made a face at the way they scraped down my throat. These people were life-changing scientists; couldn’t they at least make their pills a little smaller?

He took the glass and set it down. 

“Been working lately?” I asked. 

“You know I have,” he said. 

“I know you have.” 

He was quiet for a minute. “Senior year, huh?” 

“Yeah.” 

“We’re almost adults.” 

“Damn,” I whispered. “It was just yesterday we were throwing our shoes around.” 

“Just yesterday when we first rode the bus and started making up our stories about the passengers,” he added. 

“When we walked home in the rain because you couldn’t run.” 

“That day at the pool,” he said quietly. I knew that he was talking about when we met. I smiled. 

“My favorite day,” I told him. 

He nodded and smiled his half-smile at me. (He was so beautiful in moments like these. He was always beautiful.)

We batted the conversation back and forth for a while. It wasn’t going anywhere, and that was fine by me. 

I yawned, suddenly feeling heavy and blurred. 

“Tired?” Ari asked. 

“No.” 

“Don’t lie, Dante. You said you wouldn’t lie to me.” 

“No, I didn’t.” 

“You did,” he said. “The day you came home, I said we’d always be friends and you said you’d never lie to me.” 

“You’re making that up.” 

“I’m not!” 

“Sure,” I drawled sarcastically. 

“You really said that. It even sounds like something you would say.” 

“No, it doesn’t.” 

He rolled his eyes at me. “You can take a nap.” 

“But then you’ll leave!” 

“I’ll be back soon.” 

I sighed. I didn’t want ‘soon,’ I wanted now. “Yeah.” 

He looked at me.

“Fine, I’ll take a nap.”

“Good.” 

I tried to move again, and it hurt a tiny bit less. The painkillers kicked in fast, but not fast enough for this. “Can you, uh. Can you help me?” 

He nodded and came to stand next to me. He held out an arm for me to hold and lean forward into while he fixed my pillows. He eased me back until I was laying down. 

“Thanks,” I said through another yawn. 

“Don’t thank me.”

“Too late.” 

He shook his head. “You’re impossible.” 

“I know.” My eyelids were too heavy. 

He smiled. “I knew you were tired.” 

“‘M not. You’re just persuasive.” 

“Your eyes are closing as we speak.” 

“Lies.” 

He chuckled. I felt his warm hands push my hair out of my eyes and linger on the top of my head. It had always grown fast, and it hadn’t been cut in weeks. The brush of Ari’s fingertips against my skin held the same fire it always did, even in the pain and the sadness.

“Sleep well, Dante,” he murmured. 

I hummed in response and let the sleepiness have its way. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When you literally got sent to the hospital after a homophobic attack and you're majorly depressed but you can't pass up an opportunity to flirt with, talk to, or be in the same room as the love of your life 
> 
> Also take your meds please, don't be like my dumbass Dante here <33
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	96. All the Secrets of the Universe - Chapter Twelve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A search, a river, and the sound of footsteps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Jaime doesn't argue with Ari about not paying for Julian's ER visit. Jaime has a talk with Julian's dad. He doesn't sell Ari's truck.

“I’m leaving now, Dante.” 

My dad had his head poked into my room. He was nervous. We all were. 

“Okay.” 

“Love you.” 

“Love you too, Dad.” 

My mom came up and waited for him in my room. She read to me from  _ To Kill a Mockingbird _ , which was sort of her comfort book. I drew her in my sketchbook, my hand a little stiffer than normal since I was so out-of-practice. I showed it to her, and she gave me a tight-lipped smile. 

We heard the door close downstairs and went silent. 

My dad’s footsteps echoed on the stairs. Mom’s leg bounced, which only happened when she was really, really nervous. 

He came into the room and shut the door behind him for no reason. Nobody else was in the house. 

“Well, I found the old lady.” 

We looked at him. 

“I tried to talk to her. She’s…” he shifted his weight, and then shifted it back. “She’s old.” 

“Yeah,” I whispered.

“Yeah. She’s old. And sometimes that means-” 

“Sam,” my mom said. 

He folded his lips into a tight line, then sighed. “Her memory isn’t great. It’s terrible, actually. She’s not going to be able to help us.” 

Nobody said anything for awhile. My dad was looking between my mom and I. I stared at the ceiling and tried to breathe. 

My mom broke the silence with a sob. 

I looked down from the ceiling and saw that they were crying. 

“I’m sorry,” my dad croaked. 

I squinted. “What for?” 

“I’m just so, so sorry.” 

“You didn’t do anything wrong.” 

“I’m sorry I couldn’t do anything to protect you from this,” he whispered. 

I was crying, now, too. 

“It’s not your fault,” I said wetly. 

We cried. Later, my dad would tell me that the woman who had saved my life didn’t even remember doing it. She was old and crazy and she’d saved me without knowing she’d done it two weeks later. 

We cried and cried until the river of our tears seemed to run dry. 

“It’s okay,” I mumbled. 

“It’s not,” my mom said. “It’s not okay.” 

“I know.”

And we were crying again. Impossibly, we were crying again. 

I was learning that impossible things happened sometimes. Like when you cried more than a person should have been able to cry after you’d been attacked for being gay. 

I was learning that some of the secrets of the universe weren’t so beautiful. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	97. All the Secrets of the Universe - Chapter Thirteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inconveniently gay thoughts, debate brain, and old photos. The whole story and patterns of the end of summer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are nearing the end and I am Scared of Writing That Chapter (yes, That One) and it is all I can think about so excuse me while I panic and try not to mess up the next few too bad <33
> 
> Also! This is the chapter where Ari explains why Bernardo's in prison, which includes the part where Bernardo killed a transgender woman. Ari misgenders the woman several times and uses a word that is widely frowned upon, so I decided to change it. They refer to her as a woman instead of a man, as they should, and they use the word transgender (which, according to [this](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/jun/02/brief-history-transgender-issues#:~:text='Transvestite'%20originated%20in%201910%20from,British%20term\)%20not%20until%201996) article, was coined in 1971, so it isn't technically impossible that they would know it, just vagiely improbable). 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari goes to Dante's house to tell him about Bernardo.

Ari kept coming over, and we ran out of words. 

That never used to happen. 

He would come into my room with a pile of books he’d gotten from my dad. I’d sink into his voice and let it soften the world around me with its unearthly smoothness. He didn’t go to work anymore. I was getting better on the outside, and I didn’t go back, either. 

He couldn’t even bring Legs. He said she’d jump on my bed and hurt me, which was probably true. I missed that dog. I missed her so much. 

I loved Ari, as I always did. But something inside of me started to give up. He hadn’t wanted to kiss me. He knew that I loved him, I was sure of it. I hadn’t been so subtle about it. He didn’t love me back. He didn’t love me, and it hurt, but everything hurt, so it was more like something I knew I should’ve cared more about but was only vaguely aware of. 

“Folks, I’m telling you / birthing is hard / and dying is mean-- / so get yourself / a little loving / in between,” he read. 

I hummed. “Again,” I told him, even though it was short. I knew he’d say it again if I asked.

He did.

“Langston Hughes?” 

“Yup.”

I sighed. He closed the book. 

He visibly searched for something to say. “Why does summer always have to end with one of us all beat to hell?”

If it was a joke, it was a bad one. 

He came over with an envelope one day. 

“What’s that?” I asked. 

He opened it and slid out a short pile of photos. He spread them out on the bed in front of me. 

Ari looked at me. He was nervous, I could tell. I studied the pictures, and picked up one with the whole family. I hadn’t met Ari’s sisters, but they probably looked different anyway. 

Lilly and Jaime, looking lighter and happier (although the war must’ve just finished and hurt hadn’t healed). The two girls, young and sweet, smiling like they had a reason to. Little Ari on his mother’s knee, looking at something to the side of the camera, the curls of his hair falling just short of his wide eyes. And a boy. Bernardo. I couldn’t quite place him. Not quite as happy as the others, but not unhappy either. 

I took the next photo, which was almost the same as the other one. In this one, though, Ari’s tiny hand was wrapped around Bernardo’s finger, and he was looking at his little brother with a soft smile on his lips. He loved Ari, I knew. Anyone could see it. 

**“So you want to hear the whole thing?”** he asked after some time. 

**“Tell me.”**

He colored in the silence with one rushed stroke. **“Okay. My brother was fifteen years old. He was angry. From everything I understand about him, he was always angry. I especially got that from my sisters. I guess he was mean or, just, I don’t know, he was just born angry. So one night he’s roaming around the streets of downtown, looking for trouble. That’s what my father said. He said: ‘Bernardo was always looking for troub** **le .’”** He stopped to breathe. **“He picked up a prostitute.”**

My brain kicked into debate mode. Or, investigative mode. Or analytical mode. Something like that. **“Where’d he get the money?”**

**“I don’t know. What kind of question is that?”**

_A reasonable one, Ari._ **“When you were fifteen, did you have money for a prostitute?”**

 **“When I was fifteen?”** he parroted. **“You say it like it was a long time ago. Hell, I barely had money for a candy bar.”**

 **“That’s my point,”** I said. 

**“Can I finish?”**

**“Sorry.”**

**“The prostitute turns out to be… different.”**

**“What?”**

**“She was transgender.”**

Oh. **“Wow,”** I said. 

**“Yeah. My br** **other goes ballistic.”**

**“How ballistic?”**

**“He killed her with his fists,”** he said, closing his eyes. 

All the air in my lungs left my body. **“God.”**

 **“Yeah. God,”** he whispered. 

I thought of how I wasn’t so different from a transgender person. Well, no, I really was different. I really, really was. But we were both different from what people thought we should have been. It took courage for both of us to live as we truly were. It was different, sure, but in some ways, it overlapped. 

Killed by Bernardo’s bare hands. I almost knew what that was like. I was minutes from having been just another newspaper article like the one the woman from the story had probably never gotten. 

And Jaime and Lilly lived with that. They lived, also, knowing that their son had done something he’d never escape for the rest of his life at fifteen years old. I stared at Ari, the boy who seemed so small. The boy who was fifteen just last summer. 

He looked at me. **“Did you know what transgender meant?”**

I blinked. **“Yeah. Of course I did.”**

**“Of course you did.”**

**“You didn’t know what transgender meant?”**

**“How would I know?”** he said.

**“You’re so innocent, Ari, you know that?”**

**“Not so innocent.”**

His eyes went unfocused and he bit his lip. I knew he was thinking of how to keep going. **“The story gets sadder.”**

**“How can the story get sadder?”**

**“He killed someone else.”**

He stopped. I knew he’d continue, so I sat and fought the urge to take his hand (or reach over and hold him and kiss him and tell him it was okay). _Not an appropriate time to be having gay thoughts,_ I told myself. 

**“He was in a juvenile detention center,”** Ari said. He was quieter, and he went more slowly. His fingers were tangled in the ends of his hair. **“I guess one day, he took out his fists again. My mom is right. Things don’t just go away because we want them to.”**

It hurt to watch him hurt. **“I’m sorry, Ari.”**

 **“Yeah, well, there’s nothing we can do, is there? But it’s good, Dante. I mean, it’s not good for my brother. I don’t know if anything’s ever going to be good with him. But it’s good it’s all out there, you know. In the open.”** He stopped tugging on his hair and met my eyes, deep brown irises pulling me further into their sadness. **“Maybe someday I’ll know him. Maybe someday.”**

I looked back at him. You could see all the cracks from where he’d been broken if he let you. 

And he was letting me. 

**“You look like you’re about to cry,”** I whispered. 

**“I’m not,”** he said. **“It’s just too sad, Dante. And you know what? I’m like him, I think.”**

I inhaled. Exhaled. Didn’t start listing all the reasons he was different, all the reasons he was the most incredible and sweet boy in the entire universe. **“Why?”** I asked instead. **“Because you broke Julian Enriquez’s nose?”**

He furrowed his eyebrows. **“You know?”**

I furrowed mine right back. **“Yeah.”**

**“Why didn’t you tell me you knew?”**

**“Why didn’t** **_you_ ** **tell** **_me_ ** **, Ari?”** I countered. 

**“I’m not proud of myself, Dante.”**

**“Why’d you do it?”**

He looked down at his lap. **“I don’t know. He hurt you. I wanted to hurt him back. I did a stupid kind of math in my head.** ” His gaze lifted again, and I watched him study me. **“Your black eyes are almost gone.”**

**“Almost.”**

**“How are the ribs?”**

**“Better,”** I told him. **“Some nights it’s hard to sleep. So I take a pain pill. I hate them.”**

 **“You’d make a bad drug addict,** ” he said. Just like that, we’d moved on. 

**“Maybe not. I really liked pot,”** I said. **“I really did.”**

**“Maybe your mother should interview you for that book she’s writing.”**

**“Well, she already gave me hell.”** I studied the memory in my mind of my mom sitting me down and giving me a lecture. It was fainter, discolored by the force of the attack. It felt like years ago instead of a few weeks. It hardly mattered anymore. 

**“How’d she find out?”** Ari asked. 

**“I keep telling you. She’s like God. She knows everything.”**

He laughed like he was trying not to. So did I, and it hurt a little bit. But it was also the only thing in my life that wasn’t pain. And so it was okay. 

I got serious again. He was looking kind of downwards, so I leaned my face down so I was looking him in the eye. He did his half-smile, and my stomach swooped. **“You’re not,”** I almost whispered. **“You’re not like your brother at all.”**

**“I don’t know, Dante. Sometimes I think I’ll ever understand myself. I’m not like you. You know exactly who you are.”**

I almost laughed. **“Not always.”** If he only knew about the spiral living in my brain throughout our time in Chicago. If only he knew how much I thought about everything. He knew me the best, and he didn’t even see how hard it was. **“Can I ask you a question?”**

**“Sure.”**

**“Does it bother you, that I was kissing Daniel?”** My mom always told me I had no filter with fond exasperation, and my dad would always laugh at the accusation. I was leaning into the image, I guess. 

**“I think Daniel’s a piece of shit,”** he said, suddenly sharp. 

**“He’s not.”** I leaned back. I didn’t know why I needed to defend him. I guess I didn’t want to seem like the kind of guy to go around kissing piece-of-shit guys. **“He’s nice. He’s good-looking.”**

 **“He’s good-looking? How shallow is that?”** He was mad, and I didn’t get it. **“He’s a piece of shit, Dante. He just left you there.”**

 **“You sound like you care more than I do,”** I said. 

**“Well, you should care.”** His words were meant to be cutting and hot, but they were mostly just confusing. What did it matter to him? It wasn’t like he could’ve felt the same way. It wasn’t like he was ever going to be the one I was kissing. He’d made that clear enough. 

**“You wouldn’t have done that, would you?”** I asked. 

**“No,”** he said, not even hesitating. I wondered if he’d thought about it. If he’d been thinking about kissing me. Not specifically that, I thought, but thinking about it by extension. 

I wanted to make him laugh. **“I’m glad you broke Julian’s nose.”**

It worked, and I chuckled along. I didn’t wince at it. Progress. Always progress. 

**“Daniel doesn’t care about you,”** Ari told me.

**“He was scared.”**

**“So what? We’re all scared.”**

**“You’re not, Ari,”** I said. “ **You’re not scared of anything.”**

 **“That’s not true. But I wouldn’t have let them do that to y** ou.” 

So he had thought about it. 

I shook my head and smiled. **“Maybe you just like to fight, Ari.”**

**“Maybe.”**

We didn’t talk for a little bit. I weighed my next sentence. What did I have to lose? What was the worst thing he could say (that was a terrible road to go down)? Did it even matter? I’d almost died, which meant I knew what it felt like to come so close to never getting to talk to him again. But was that an excuse to just let every thought out? Was I--

 **“You’re staring,”** he said pointedly. 

I threw caution to the wind, heart beating violently. You only live once, and all that. **“Can I tell you a secret, Ari?”**

**“Can I stop you?”**

**“You don’t like knowing my secrets.”**

**“Sometimes your secrets scare me.”**

I laughed again, the pain clear but soft. _Interesting._

**“I wasn’t really kissing Daniel. In my head, I was kissing you.”**

He just shrugged, like I hadn’t just bared my entire soul. Like I hadn’t just given him something larger than anything I’d given anyone before. Like I wasn’t telling the love of my life I wanted to kiss him after he’d told me he didn’t want to kiss me. 

**“You’ve got to get yourself a new head, Dante.”**

Of course. 

**“Yeah,”** I muttered. **“Guess so.”**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poem Ari read is called Advice, and it's by Langston Hughes, as Dante says. I couldn't help myself, I just think it's quite precious and I had to put it in. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!!
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	98. All the Secrets of the Universe - Chapter Fourteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fuzzy memories, ghosts, and endings. Practice runs and adults being adults being adults.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's fucking cold for no reason and I think we're gonna get the first frost on Thursday night, so I'm kind of grumpy. (It's not for no reason, technically September 10th is only like a week sooner than average but I still hate it.) Time to hole up inside and tell Mother Nature she's being a bitch again. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari thinks about the future and college.

“How’s Ari?” my mom asked me one day. 

“I don’t know.” 

“It’s been awhile, hasn’t it?” 

“Yeah,” I said. “A week and a half, or something like that.” 

“Huh.” 

“Yeah.” 

He hadn’t been coming over or calling. The last time we were starting to get distant was after the kiss, and he hadn’t been doing well then. 

That goddamn kiss. It followed me around every second of every day. I was mortified by it, by how I made him feel and the choppy memories of the following days of laying around and thinking about it. I remembered wondering if he hated me, deciding that he did, and crying about never getting to see him ever, ever again because I was terrible and he hated me. 

That goddamn kiss. So, so wrong. I never should have done it, and I knew that. 

And yet, it was the thing that came wandering back to me at night when the pain would build and the medicine hadn’t started working yet. A phantom touch, the ghost of something warm and soft and feather-light. The memory of our breath mingling together into a single being, the taste of his lips on my tongue. 

A feeling would rise in me, then. (I was made of feelings.) Some kind of drunken mismatch of hope and despair and  _ longing _ , always longing, so deep it felt like it had been pressed into my bones the moment I’d been created.

_ He kissed me back,  _ my mind would whisper. 

_ It didn’t work for him,  _ it would spit in return. 

Summer, though, was coming to a close, and therefore my days of sitting around were as well. Summer days, a bittersweet symphony. Memories of the summer previous haunted me like old spirits with a grievance. Maybe that’s what they were, I decided. The car accident was restless and wanted to come back and torment me. 

Apparently, I hadn’t been tormented enough already.

Senior year, this time around. Senior year, and then the rest of our lives. 

It was funny how I couldn’t say “the rest of my life.” How I said “our,” like Ari would bother to stick around. Maybe the pity would keep him. Maybe for a bit. 

Adult life seemed distant and fuzzy, almost as if through a window whose transparency was stolen by steam. Not truly here, of course, but would it ever arrive? There was a separation, in my mind, between the  _ now _ and the  _ later _ . 

Senior year, everyone promised me, was a year for final growth and change before the rest of your growth and change came from the real world. 

The real world. As if high school wasn’t real. As if car accidents and attacks in alleys and moving across the country and lying awake at night worrying and kissing boys and wanting to kiss a very specific boy who didn’t share your same affinity were just a practice run. 

Adults didn’t make any sense. 

My mom was right. Ari hadn’t been over in awhile. 

He was distancing himself from me. I didn’t blame him. I was just sad and lazy and way, way too in love with him. There was no reason for him to stay. 

Knowing the reason for something didn’t always make it easier to bear. Sometimes it just made it harder. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somebody go tell Dante he's worth the stars, moon, and sky and everything above which they reside because he clearly needs a reminder.
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	99. All the Secrets of the Universe - Chapter Fifteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little question and the best way to go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Dante has a small question. Ari feels unknowable.

I thought about something Ari had said to me once, maybe two weeks before.

I’d asked him a question, words dribbling from my lips like water from an old hose, already knowing what answer I wanted and already knowing there was no version of this universe in which he gave me that answer.  **“What do you love, Ari? What do you really love?”**

His eyes had gone empty, but also full, softening and hardening in a delicate dance step between blinks of his long lashes. 

**“The desert,”** he said, words clear and brimming with an easy honesty I didn’t always get to see.  **“God, I love the desert.”**

I’d yawned and stopped myself from lacing my fingers into his.  **“It’s so lonely.”**

**“Is it?”**

Ari could love something so empty. I couldn’t love like that. I loved the full things. The things that were made of light and depth and  _ essence,  _ things that overflowed with all the everything they held. 

Loving Ari was the simplest. His kind of full was the kind of full you didn’t notice until you looked closely. And when you really looked, he was so impossibly full, you could drown in it in a single moment if you weren’t careful. You had to look closely, though. Ari himself didn’t realize how full he was of everything that was real and true. 

I was drowning in Ari, I thought. 

Not such a bad sort of pain. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ari's not unknowable. Maybe he's just uncomfortable with the fact that Dante knows him. Maybe before Dante, he really felt unknowable. Lots of maybes. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	100. All the Secrets of the Universe - Chapter Sixteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Awkward silences, unfortunate relief, and apologies. Nervous for nothing and a new form of torture.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I agonized over this for a long time. I don't know why, but it was insanely difficult to write. Even though I'm aware that it isn't perfect, I'm just gonna put it out there because I need to move on or I know that I'll be stuck for too long. It's just like that sometimes, you know?
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari goes to the pool and stops by Dante's house on the way back home. Sam says that Dante's with Daniel, and Ari leaves.

My palms were sweating as I sat in the living room, trying to breathe deeply and watching my leg bounce up and down faster than was probably normal. 

A few brief knocks decided to put me out of my misery. I shot up and practically ran towards the front door. 

I threw it open. “Hi,” I said. 

“Hi,” Daniel said back. 

I took him up to my room. He fidgeted and tugged at his bottom lip with his teeth, staring at the floor. 

“You can sit down,” I said, just to put him out of his misery. He glanced up and sort of smiled a little, then hesitantly lowered himself onto my desk chair like he was afraid it would bite him. 

We sat there, him looking at his hands and me looking at him. The silence was palpable and tasted like stagnance. 

I cleared my throat. “So… Thanks for coming.” 

He nodded. 

“I, uh. How have you been?” I forced out. 

“Okay,” he said quietly, finally looking up, but still not meeting my eye. 

“That’s good.” 

He picked at the seam of his jeans, still gnawing on his lip somewhat violently. I was going to have to take matters into my own hands, no matter how much I wanted to throw myself out the window and leave him to deal with the rest himself. 

“Look,” I started. “You don’t have to be here, I just thought--” 

He didn’t let me finish. “No, no. I’m sorry.” He took a deep breath and talked a little louder. “I was terrible. I did a horrible thing, and I don’t know how to make up for it.” 

“You don’t have to make up for anything. It wasn’t your fault,” I told him. 

And it was true. I’d thought about it for a long time, and there was no reason for yet another person to blame themself for this thing that none of us could have prevented. It was the universe, I supposed. Maybe not, though. Maybe it was just a couple of stupid boys with this hate inside of them, and the universe and whatever God happened to be up there had nothing to do with it. 

“...Dante?” Daniel was saying. 

“Sorry, sorry,” I rushed. “What?” 

“I said I’m sorry again. I know it’s not my fault, but it was just…” He covered his face with his hands. “I ran away, and you stayed.” 

“Hey.” I reached over and peeled a few fingers away from his face until I had his hand in mine. “I know.” 

He let out a shaky breath. “I know you know.” 

We sat there for awhile. 

“Do you forgive me?” he asked me, folding in his lips and looking everywhere but my eyes. 

I smiled. “There’s nothing to forgive.” 

He smiled back. Then he laughed a little. “I was so nervous to come here.” 

“What? Why?” 

“Well, I guess I thought you were letting me come over so you could tell me you never wanted to see me again.” 

I just shook my head and watched him. 

“I really like you, Dante.” 

I smiled. And I wanted to say it back to him. I wanted to want him, I really did. I wanted to be excited about him and have my stomach do a stupid backflip when he smiled and my skin to light on fire when it brushed against his, and to have the edges of my soul fit into his like a puzzle piece and the cool blue of his eyes to feel like an oasis after eternities of wandering though a barren desert, just like with… 

Those were Ari feelings. I thought of Ari when I thought of love. I thought of Ari when I thought of life and happiness. 

Ari was my soulmate. So as much as Daniel was a sweet guy who liked kissing me and who sold me pot sometimes, that was all he was. 

But there he sat, in my room, waiting for me to say something with that look on his face halfway between nervous and hopeful. It was almost sad to look at. 

“Ari came and talked to me,” he told me finally. 

“I thought he did. I’m sorry Ari said… whatever he said to you,” I said. 

He laughed. “You talk about him a lot, but you didn’t tell me he’s so scary, Dante.” 

“He’s not really.” 

“You weren’t there.” 

We laughed. It was okay. 

I shut the door after Daniel left and heaved an exhale of everything related to him that I’d been carrying in the past weeks. 

My dad was waiting on the couch. 

“He left, Dad,” I announced. 

“I heard.” 

I looked at him. 

“How’d it go?” he asked, carefully neutral. 

“It was good. He said he was sorry, and I really believed him.” 

My dad smiled. “Good. He doesn’t seem like a bad guy.” 

“He’s not. He’s nice.” 

“Good.” 

I nodded, and he nodded back at me. We were bobbing our heads at each other for a while, thinking our own things. 

“Ari stopped by,” my dad said finally. 

“Oh? Why didn’t you send him up?” I mean, seriously, I hadn’t seen my best-friend-slash-semi-unrequited-love in way too many days, and he stopped by the only time I had anything else going on?

“I tried,” Dad said carefully. He took a moment to select his next words and delivered them slowly, as if he wouldn’t have to say them if he didn’t go at a normal pace. “He’s not Daniel’s biggest fan, as you know.” 

I sighed. “Of course.” 

“He said to tell you he came by, though. That’s something. You should call him.”

“Sure.”

I wondered what I would say if I called.  _ Hey, it’s Dante, sorry you couldn’t come talk to me earlier. I was too busy with your stand-in because you don’t love me. Yeah, your stand-in, Daniel, the guy you hate because he ran away as I was about to get brutally attacked? Fun times!  _ What was I supposed to talk to him about?

I was forgetting what it felt like to be easy around Ari. All the carefree days of laughter and sunshine were in the past, replaced all too quickly by complication. I couldn’t stare, I couldn’t admire his arms when he rolled up his tee shirt sleeves on a particularly hot day, I couldn’t let myself visibly melt when he laughed or smiled, I couldn’t freak out every time he touched me. I couldn’t touch him, either, and that may have been the hardest part. 

The past two weeks or so of not seeing Ari had been like torture, but I was also getting a break from the strain that came with being in the same room as he was. 

I hated that it was a relief. I hated that I loved him so much. 

No, that’s not true. Loving him was breathing, and you can’t hate breathing. It’s not possible. I couldn’t have hated loving him. 

It was the words that replayed in my brain, over and over until they were just echoes of a taunt that kept me from enjoying myself whatsoever at all. 

_ It didn’t work for me.  _

He didn’t want to kiss me, and he didn’t love me. And that was the thing that I loathed so deeply and completely. 

So maybe I just hated myself, because I didn’t even deserve to be loved by him and I wanted to be anyway. This was a secret of the universe, I thought. I didn’t deserve love. I never had. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love this chapter in the book. It's the one where that one girl tries to flirt with Ari and he's like "bye" and that's possibly one of my favorite parts of the whole book (besides, you know, everything), it's fantastic.  
> Anyway, I know this chapter was kind of subpar and trust me, I'm feeling very blah about it, but I knew that the longer I stewed on it or tried to rewrite it a fifth time, I would just lose any semblance of momentum left in me. So! I'm moving on!
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	101. All the Secrets of the Universe - Chapter Seventeen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Demeaning comments, easy decisions, and getting defensive. Surprising relationship labels and hey Daniel, you're gay!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That was a week from Hell. I literally don't know what happened, but work just got really fucking weird and then school got REALLY fucking weird and does anyone know how to inject caffeine because that could be helpful. But anyway, forgive me if the last few chapters are gradual. I know there's only like four or five left, but I just don't have that much time for anything and I would like to actually experience sleep at some point. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Ari calls Dante. This doesn't help, it just makes everything worse. He works out for too long and then falls asleep and naps for too long.

I ended up calling Ari. I promised myself it would be fine, and my curiosity about his thing with Daniel bested my desire to not be awkward. 

He picked up after two rings. “Hey.” 

“Hi, Ari.” 

“Hi.” 

I cut to the chase. **“My dad said you were upset?”**

**“I wasn’t upset,”** he lied. His voice did this thing when he was telling a really obvious lie; it kind of went up a little at the end, almost like he was asking a question but not quite as dramatically. It was more defensive than that. 

Legs started barking in the background. I smiled despite the sinking feeling in my stomach as Ari grumbled and told her off.

**“Okay,”** he sighed. **“Look, I wasn’t upset.”**

**“I think my dad would know.”**

**“Okay. What the shit difference does it make?”** he challenged. 

_ I don’t know, Ari, maybe I just care because I’m your best friend,  _ I thought.  _ Or maybe it makes a difference because when you’re upset, you invite me to the desert and then sob in my arms until you physically couldn’t anymore, or you go beat up a kid so bad he has to go to the emergency room. You have a checkered history with negative emotions.  _

**“See. You** **_are_ upset.” **

**“I just wasn’t in the mood to see your friend Daniel,”** Ari said. 

**“What’s he ever done to you?”** I asked. 

**“Nothing. I just don’t like the guy.”** Helpful as always, Ari was. 

**“What can’t we all be friends?”**

He scoffed. **“The bastard left you there to die, Dante.”**

**“We talked about it,”** I defended. **“It’s okay.”**

**“Okay then. Good.”** He had this thing in his voice. He sounded a little crazed or something, breathy and higher pitched. Like he was trying really hard to sound cool about this. Like he wanted to say something different. 

**“You’re acting crazy,”** I told him. 

**“Dante, you’re so full of shit sometimes, you know that?”**

I couldn’t deal with that. Him being weird and crazy and angry. Him not trusting my judgement and just being rude to Daniel instead. Well, I  _ could _ deal with it, but I really didn’t feel like it. I was tired. I loved him, obviously, but I had other things to think about.

**“Look. We’re going to some party tonight.”** Daniel had invited me before he’d left, and I felt like I owed him one. The poor guy thought I hated him for weeks until we talked, and nobody was addressing his trauma. **“I’d like it if you came.”**

**“I’ll let you know,”** he said, which meant he wasn’t coming. He hung up without saying goodbye. 

I didn’t have time to dwell on that. Daniel was coming over. 

“Ready?” Daniel asked. 

“Yeah. We have time, right? You can come in, if you want,” I said, holding the door farther open. 

He stepped into the house and looked around. My parents materialized in front of us. 

“Hi there,” my dad said. My mom smiled and nodded. 

“Hi.” Daniel smiled and stepped forward, hand extended for my dad to shake. “I’m Daniel, Dante’s boyfriend.” 

I started coughing.  _ What the fuck? _

My dad, to his credit, looked surprised but didn’t do anything weird. That made one of us, I guess. “Nice to meet you, Daniel. Dante told us all about you,” he lied easily. 

“Nice to meet you, too. And you, Mrs. Quintana.” Daniel shook my mom’s hand too.

“Yes,” she said stiffly. She wasn’t really smiling much anymore. 

My dad cleared his throat. “Do you want to hang out upstairs for awhile?” 

“Sure,” I rushed, and pulled Daniel up to my room by the elbow. 

He sat down on the bed next to me. “Your dad’s cool.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Your mom though? I don’t know about her.” 

I frowned. “She’s nice.” 

“Really?” 

“Maybe she was just in a bad mood,” I attempted. “She’s pregnant, you know. I don’t know, that’s probably just something that happens.” 

“Sure. She doesn’t seem that nice, though,” he said simply. Well, I guess he was getting over his whole shy thing again. It was hot and cold with this one. 

I had to change the subject. I grabbed a hold of the first thing that came to mind. 

“School’s starting soon,” I said. 

“Yup. Seniors, huh?” he said. 

“Yeah. Doing anything cool this year? Clubs? Sports?” 

“Not really. I don’t need it, my grades are good enough without any of that shit.” 

“Oh. I mean, I guess I don’t have that much going on. Ari and I go to different schools, so I don’t really know that many people--” 

He cut me off. “You know which one’s the worst? Swim team. It’s like, yeah, we get it, it’s Texas! It’s hot outside! People swim! You don’t have to turn it into a lame excuse for a sport.” 

I stared at him.  _ He doesn’t mean it,  _ I told myself.  _ I probably haven’t mentioned swimming for Cathedral, right? Yeah. He doesn’t know better.  _

“Also, when people take everything too seriously. Like in English class, these kids’ll come in and like, talk about poems and stuff. Like poems are important. They’re so high-and-mighty, like they’re better than you because they can understand that shit,” he said kind of angrily. “Just get through class like everybody else, right? You’re not special.” 

I blinked. “Well, I mean, I like poetry. It’s not so bad.” 

He scoffed. “I’m sure you’re not like the people I talk about. They read it for fun or whatever. Not just tolerating it for school, but they care about it or something. It’s so gay.”

“Daniel, aren’t you gay?” 

“Yeah. Obviously.” 

“How can you, you know…” I gestured vaguely in front of his face. “Say it like it’s a bad thing, then?” 

“Relax, Dante, it’s just a joke.” 

“Yeah, well, laying in the alley wasn’t exactly a great punchline,” I shot back.

“I thought you weren’t mad about that.” 

“I wasn’t, until you started saying all that. That shit’s the reason those guys thought it was okay.” 

“No,” he said, with the impatiently light tone of someone explaining a basic concept to a child. “Those guys thought it was okay because homosexuality is a sin, and the Bible says it’s bad. The priests, you know, they tell those good Catholic boys it’s a sin, and then the boys grow up to be men, and they pass it onto their kids, and then their kids turn out to be assholes like that. But really, it’s from God.” 

I blinked at him again. “Wait, I’m confused. Do you believe it’s a sin?” 

“Well, yeah.” 

“So why did you just introduce yourself to my parents as my boyfriend? Why’d you ask me out and then kiss me in that alley?” I asked. 

“It’s complicated, Dante,” he sighed. 

“Sounds like it.” 

“It really is.” 

“Actually, it seems more like an excuse,” I corrected myself, starting slowly and letting myself roll through each word like it was important (because it was). “It seems like a reason for people to hate other people. I mean, the Bible also says slavery is okay.” 

“What? No it doesn’t.” 

“Have you read the Bible?” 

He scoffed. “Excuse me?” 

“Nothing, nothing. It’s just that you’re being kind of a jerk right now and I don’t know why.” 

“I’m being a jerk?” he repeated, louder than before. “You’re the one who brought us up here so you could talk about Ari--” 

“What? We’re in my room because we have time to kill before the party!” 

“Whatever. You always talk about that guy.” 

“I don’t. I  _ don’t _ . He’s my best friend, so even if I did it would be fine.”

“I don’t think it’s fine. You’re being selfish, Dante. He was rude to me. I don’t like you being friends with him.” 

I stopped. I looked at him. “First of all, you’re not my boyfriend. That’s not real. We never agreed on that,” I said slowly, relishing the fear that rose in his eyes and not caring how cruel that was. “Second, you’re the one who’s earning my forgiveness here, so you’d better be careful. Third, even if you were my boyfriend, which you are not, you wouldn’t be able to tell me who my friends could or couldn’t be. That’s not how it works, not with me. Fourth, I would choose Ari over you any day of the week, and if that’s a problem, I don’t care.” 

He stood up, eyes flashing. “Then I guess you’ve made your choice.” 

“I have.” 

He looked at me like he wasn’t expecting that, for some reason. I almost laughed. “You know where the front door is,” I said. 

“Mom?” I yelled. 

She was up the stairs in seconds, my dad following.

“I don’t like that kid,” she said seriously. “He’s bad news.” 

“Well, Soledad, I don’t think that’s really fair,” my dad attempted feebly. “The kid was just traumatized, give him a break. I thought he was quite… charming.”

She rounded on him before I could blink. “Sam Quintana, I’m a psychologist, I understand that he has trauma so don’t you dare try to explain it to me. It’s demeaning. If you think that’s any excuse to act--” 

“Mom,” I interrupted loudly. “I know. I get it. He’s an asshole.” 

She sighed in relief. “Oh, thank God.” 

My dad chuckled. “So we won’t be seeing him around?” 

“No,” I promised, both to them and myself. 

My dad cleared his throat. “Just to be clear, I wasn’t trying to be demeaning. I was searching for something nice to say.” 

My mom laughed. “I know.” 

“You know, if you decide you like him, I’ll find something nice to say again, okay?” he told me. 

“I’m not going to talk to him again, Dad.” 

“Well, I can always find something nice the next time you bring home a terrible guy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. That awkward moment when a guy comes over and introduces himself to your parents as your boyfriend but he's actually not your boyfriend and then he insults your interests without knowing it and then he says "gay" like an insult even though he's actually gay and then he continues to be an asshole so you have to kick him out of your house and then your mom says she doesn't like him and your dad tries to defend him and you have to assure them both that you're fully aware of his asshole qualities and you're not actually dating anymore. Some of us haven't been there and it shows.
> 
> 2\. No offence to Christians lol I was raised Baptist and the whole You're Going to Hell Because You're Gay thing always baffled me because there's plenty of other shit in the Bible that straight people ignore. Like if we're gonna pick and choose which things the Bible says are sins, you're going to Hell for wearing both cotton and leather at the same time, Karen. 
> 
> 3\. I know that whole scene with Daniel was unrealistic but I was like, "I need something that's self-involved, conceited, and shitty, as per Dante's description..." I just kind of ran with it. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @[smudgedinkwriting](https://smudged-ink-writing.tumblr.com/) and email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


	102. All the Secrets of the Universe - Chapter Eighteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Impatience, Soledad's boy, and today. Begrudging admission of being wrong and an infinite infinity symbol.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's Britney, bitch.   
> I'm baaaaaaack! It's been awhile. It's been a minute. How are you? Are you okay? Drinking water, eating actual food, sleeping, sitting up straight, taking your meds on time? We doing good? Good.   
> Okay, full disclosure, I kinda forgot how to write, so this is a weird one. This is a big chapter, too, especially in canon. It's one of the most dramatic, most tear-inducing, and, dare I say it, most iconic chapters of Ari and Dante. This is: Ari's reverse coming out scene. My god, this was weird to write, knowing that that conversation was taking place at the same time. It's not perfect and it's definitely not as good as the original, but hey! I did my best and that's all you can ask for, right? Without further ado, enjoy. 
> 
> AADDTSOTU chapter recap: Lilly and Jaime have a conversation with Ari about the war and about loving a certain best friend.

Ari didn’t call me for five whole days. 

Well, Ari didn’t call me at all. On the fifth day, I caved and called him. He was being unreasonable, but he was also right about Daniel being an unforgivable asshole. On the other hand, I didn’t want to admit that I was kind of-sort of wrong. Okay, I was completely wrong. And I hated having to own up to that, but I was in love and without my best friend and I guess I thought it was time. 

So I picked up the phone and dialed his number, clenching my jaw and tapping my fingers on the receiver. My stomach prepared itself to do that stupid  _ thing  _ it always did when I heard Ari’s voice.

The phone rang. 

And it rang. 

And it rang. 

And it rang. 

And it stopped. 

I’ll admit that I put the phone back a little more violently than was necessary. At that particular moment, though, my dad happened to be walking by. 

“Whoa, Dante. Be nice to the phone. What did it ever do to you?” he asked jokingly, smiling his stupid smile and clearly expecting to make me laugh. 

“Fucking Ari’s not picking up the goddamn fucking phone.” I slumped my head forward and hit it on the table in front of me. I wondered if Ari would call back if I just stayed there long enough. 

“Language.” 

“Mom, I’m not in the mood.” 

“Call again.” 

“What?” 

“I said,” she enunciated, sitting down across from me and tugging my dad down next to her, “call him again.” 

I grumbled and pulled my head from the table. I gave my mom a look and she gave me one right back, but I held her gaze and dialed the number without breaking it. 

My stink eye was still firmly directed at my mother when I heard Lilly’s voice, sweet and clear.

“Hello, Dante, dear! Sorry I missed your first call, I was cooking and my hands were all messy so I couldn’t pick up.” 

I coughed. “Uh, hi?” 

“Are you alright?” 

“Yeah. Yeah, sorry. Is-” 

“Ari’s on a walk with Legs right now. I’ll tell him to call you back, okay?” she said. 

“Sure. Thanks, Lilly.” 

“Don’t thank me, Dante. How are you?” 

I hesitated. I couldn’t tell her I’d nearly had a breakdown because her son hadn’t answered the phone, I couldn’t tell her I’d wasted my time on a boy who literally left me to die because I was so naive that I’d thought he was worthy of forgiveness, I couldn’t tell her I was so in love with my best friend that I physically couldn’t go a minute without thinking about him. Clearly, the answer was no. But there was no way I was going to tell her that.

“I’m okay. How are you?” 

We finished our pleasantries and I hung up. My parents were still sitting across from me, staring. 

“Happy now, Mom?” I asked uneasily. 

“Sit down, Dante,” my dad said. 

“We are sitting, Dad.” 

“I know,” he assured me. “But, I mean, mentallly sit down. Just, I don’t know. Chill out.” 

I huffed a single, indignant puff of a laugh. “I  _ am  _ chill.” 

He raised his eyebrows and reached out a hand. He placed it on my fingers, which had been drumming on the table between us. Beneath the table, my mother reached out a hand and put it on my knee, which had been bouncing so violently the table was shaking. I hadn’t realized any of that was happening. 

I cleared my throat softly. “Sorry.” 

My dad shifted. “I… We have to talk to you about something.” 

“Dad, every single time you say that, something terrible happens.” I paused to think. “Actually, the baby was good. Other than that, everything has been awful.” 

“I know, but this is important.” 

“It’s always important with you two.” 

“We talk about things for a reason.” 

“Yeah, well, you’re scaring me.” 

“Dante,” my mom said. I stopped. She shot my dad a glance I couldn’t read. “We know you like boys. We know you’re gay.” 

My dad nodded. I squinted. “I know you know I’m gay.” 

“And we know you know we know you’re gay,” my dad said, grinning. 

“Sam.” 

“Sorry. Go on.” 

“And we know that you love Ari,” she said. So simply. So normally, like it wasn’t my entire heart being ripped out and served to them on a silver platter. As if that wasn’t my whole state of being in a singular sentence. 

I forgot how to speak. “I mean. I don’t. Wait. But, I do, but. I. I mean. What? No. Yes, but what? I don’t. I don’t know. Mom? Dad? Help? I can’t-” 

“You’re not subtle,” my dad said, smiling with his eyes. “Not to us. We know you, Dante. We know you love him. You don’t have to pretend you don’t.” 

My mom nodded. She reached out and turned my hand over so my palm faced the ceiling.

She slid her own palm underneath it, holding my hand on top of hers. 

“This hand,” she said quietly. Her other hand came up, and a long finger started tracing an unknown pattern on my palm. I shivered. 

We were silent. 

She was crying. “This hand. This is my flesh and blood. This is my tears and my pain. This is all my laughter. This is my smiles and my frowns and everything in between.” A tear landed on my hand and she didn’t wipe it away. “This hand is my everything. It is me and it is your father. 

But it’s not us, really. It’s not us in the way parents think it is. Not the way I used to think it was. It’s you, Dante. You are my everything. This hand might wipe the tears of a child of its own one day, or maybe it won’t. This hand will paint masterpieces. This hand will hold the hand of a boy who will make you feel like it was all worth it. Everything.” She was shaking with her tears now, silent sobs underneath her voice. “And if that boy is Ari, that boy is Ari. I know you want it to be. I want you to feel that happiness, Dante. You have so much light living inside of you and you will find someone to share it with.” 

My dad leaned over and kissed my cheek. “You’re the most beautiful boy in the entire universe.” 

“No,” I rasped. I didn’t even have to think. “Ari is. Ari wins every time.” 

They didn’t say anything. Their eyes said enough. 

“I just…” my mom began. She was still tracing on my palm, her previous erratic patterns now settled to an infinity sign. Over and over and over again. “If he doesn’t love you back. If he doesn’t love you like you want him to. You can’t force love. If he doesn’t, you have to know that it’s not your fault.” 

I didn’t say anything. 

“Can you say it?” she whispered. “I need to hear you say it.” 

“I-” I stopped. “It would have to be something I did. I talk a lot, I do things without thinking sometimes. I’m smart but I’m also kind of stupid sometimes. I’m really weird sometimes, Mom. I would have done something. There would have to be some kind of mistake I made. If he doesn’t love me,” I insisted, my voice breaking. 

“No,” my dad said firmly. He took my face in his hands and looked further into my eyes than he ever had before. “You can’t blame yourself. This isn’t easy. This isn’t as simple as something you did. People loving you is about them. It’s not about you being wrong, it’s about the other person not feeling how you’d like them to. Feelings are hard. Feelings are messy, and you know that.” 

“Yeah,” I whispered. 

“It would not be your fault, Dante.” 

I let the air settle around his words. “Okay.” 

“My boy,” my mom said. “My boy. We’ll always love you.” 

“I’ll always love you too, Mom.” 

“No, I mean it,” she said. “I love you more than I thought I could love anyone.” 

“I didn’t know I could smile so big until I held you for the first time,” my dad added. 

I finally pulled my hand from my mom’s grasp to wipe the tears from my face. “Okay, okay. I’ll always love you guys first, but right now, I love Ari so much I could explode.” 

My dad laughed. “Young love.” 

I laughed too. “I would explode and you’d have to pick up the pieces, and there would be so much love flying everywhere you’d all go crazy.” 

“That doesn’t make any sense,” my mom said. “But that’s okay.” 

“That’s okay,” I repeated. “Hey, remember when we used to say that thing? ‘Today’s the day?’ What happened to that?” 

My dad furrowed his eyebrows, but he was smiling. “Chicago. We thought you were too cool for parent-child bonding phrases.” 

“Oh my god, you guys called that a bonding phrase?” 

“No,” my mom said. “Maybe.” 

“You’re so weird.” 

“We know. Soledad, should we start the daily bonding phrase again?” 

“I think we should.” 

“If you keep calling it a bonding phrase I’m going to vomit.” 

“Today’s the day, Dante,” he said ceremoniously. “Today’s the day.” 

“Today’s the day,” my mom agreed. 

“You’re the only people on the planet to ever think of the words ‘bonding phrase,’” I said. “That’s not a thing.” 

“Say it back.” 

I rolled my eyes and flashed a grin. “Today’s the day.” 

Their smiles were big enough and beautiful enough to make me believe that maybe today  _ was  _ the day. 

Whatever that meant. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I make myself cry thinking about how much Sam and Soledad love their son? Yes. Did I make myself cry thinking about how much Dante loves his Ari? Absolutely. It's crazy, it's beautiful, I love it. 
> 
> I'm not active on Tumblr anymore (and there are too many chapters for me to go back and take every link out at this point), but you can email me at smudgedinkwriting@gmail.com.


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